


some fictions we took to mean fate,

by wondercurls1917



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (Jaskier can have littla a feral. as a treat), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Caring Jaskier | Dandelion, Eskel and Lambert are Good Uncles, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Good Parent Jaskier | Dandelion, Good Parent Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Hurt Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, I used some the amazing devil songs :/, Jaskier is a professor at Oxenfurt Academy, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, Jaskier | Dandelion is Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon's Parent, Monsters, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Protective Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Soft Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Uncle Vesemir? More Like Grandpa Vesemir, Yennefer is his wife, Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg is Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon's Parent, brief mention of Yen's background siblings, jaskier's grandfather sucked
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:01:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wondercurls1917/pseuds/wondercurls1917
Summary: The story is this: Ciri is with Geralt for a year before Nilfgaard catches up to them on their way to Novigrad, and Geralt is overtaken, but not before Ciri escapes.The story is also this: Yennefer inadvertently finds Jaskier after the Battle of Sodden Hill, and the bard cares for her through a fever. When she wakes, she learns more about the man than she ever would've had he been at the White Wolf's side.The story also happens to be this: Jaskier goes home to Oxenfurt following the false Dragon Hunt, and is called forth to become a professor and a scholar. Yennefer appears in the winter, and he cares for her, and they do fall in love. And a year goes by since the witcher's departure, and the story... shifts a little to the left.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 62
Kudos: 370
Collections: Witcher





	1. laugh at the ghosts of our fears

**Author's Note:**

> just about this whole story is planned, and I'll be posting every Saturday (I know it's Monday. I live in florida. we're in lockdown. leave me alone). hope you enjoy!

Jaskier had always been an expressive person. _Emotional._ He was a _bard,_ it was his job to be emotional! And it wasn't _his_ fault Geralt's emotive state was the equivalent of a sack of rocks.

It wasn't his fault. _None_ of this was his fault.

Repeating it to himself in the dark wasn't going to make it any truer. As long as he was alone on the side of the mountain with naught but his lute and a weaselly little campfire for company, he'd sound like a fucking lunatic and a fool. He'd always just be the shit-shoveller in Geralt's eyes, as long as he lived, even after Geralt undoubtedly outlived him.

_Jaskier the Bard, Glorified Shit-Shoveller of Geralt of Rivia._

What heart-twisting, reputation-destroying slander. Jaskier would be his own downfall, surely. _If_ he happened to make it through the night alive. He _hoped_ he'd make it through the night, not that his survival skills were shit. He actually had quite the knack for dagger-wielding, though his fire-starting abilities could use some work, as was evident by the absolute pathetic flicker of light he could scarcely use to warm _himself,_ let alone cook the squirrel he caught and killed.

No fresh meat for him tonight. Stale bread and old jerky from Geralt's supply only. Couldn't even fucking _provide_ for himself. Gods damn him.

Jaskier was interrupted from his self-loathing by the sound of soft footsteps and the swishing of a long cloak or dress.

Yennefer was approaching his little campsite, an orb of soft golden light hanging above her head. Jaskier turned to stare at her, feeling more than a little trepidatious. The mage stopped in her tracks, staring back, something forlorn on her face and something desperate in her eyes.

"You, too, then," Yennefer said, and her voice was… _soft._ Thick with some feeling Jaskier thought had never suited her. "Right. I'll see you, then, bard. Good night." She continued forth on the mountain path, past Jaskier's small camp, then paused to glance at him over her shoulder. "May the gods watch your journey and promise safe passage home."

The strange emotions warring in Yennefer's eyes were enough for Jaskier to respond, "And may your blessings be returned. Safe passage, Yennefer."

The sorceress went on her way. Jaskier played a long, mournful tune into the night, hungry and exhausted but unwilling to sleep.

In the morning, he ventured long hours down the mountainside until he was on ground level, and he eyed the horses and packs left behind. Roach nickered at him softly, and Jaskier gave her mane a pet and fed her an apple before gathering his things and setting off.

First stop, the nearest tavern to get wasted. Next stop, maybe an alcohol-related death. _Hopefully_ an alcohol-related death.

~*~

Jaskier got drunk and stayed drunk for a _month._

Within that time frame, he managed to journey from Dragon Mountains to Novigrad, which… should've been impossible _sober._ Geralt had never made a passage like that within _two_ months, let alone one. While Jaskier puzzled at how he managed to end up in the place, he played at the vast multitude of taverns around the island, and decidedly _did not_ get shitfaced, _at all._ He feared if he _did,_ he'd end up all the way in fucking Nilfgaard by the end of the next month.

Summer was dwindling, either way. He played at noblemen's courts, and weddings, and taverns, and on streets. He gathered coin, considered his considerably few options, and made a decision.

Home was just south of here, after all.

(Home was the crook of Geralt's ribcage, nestled around his terrifyingly slow heart, threaded in the strands of white hair, in the give of leather armor, and in the saddlebags on a moody mare. Home was in a silver sword and steel one, too, in the liquid gold of catlike eyes, in rare half-smiles and a gruff, fake accent.)

Jaskier went south of Novigrad on a small port ship and landed, two weeks later, on the coast of Oxenfurt.

The town was more a city, now, twenty-some years in the future and far west of the Edge of the World where he'd met the white-haired witcher, sprawling on the coast grandly. The buildings stacked upon one another, spilling with color and daily life, and the Academy loomed in the distance like it was beckoning him.

With a deep breath of the salty coastal air, Jaskier pulled his lute case strap tighter over his shoulder and started forward on his journey into a new life.

(Another new life, that is. Or, maybe, an old one.)

~*~

"If it isn't Julian Alfred!" a familiar voice called as Jaskier entered the tavern.

A small army of past peers turned in shock and excitement, raising pints and a cheer amongst themselves. The remainder of the tavern went up in a burst of mirth and joy, even though Jaskier was fairly sure nobody else knew him.

Jaskier gave a short wave and headed straight to the bar, leaning over it at the woman who'd called for him. "Good morrow, fair maid," he greeted, taking Elena's hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. Elena guffawed characteristically, head thrown back and bulging belly jumping, which… _Huh._ "You've been busy, I reckon."

"As have you, Julian," Elena returned, smiling tenderly. She took her hand away to rest on the bump of her stomach. "I've been married ten years now. I have two daughters, aged eight and five. My dear husband is hoping for a boy."

"I'd love to meet them all someday," Jaskier said, pulling up a stool to sit on. "How have you been, my dear Elena?"

"I'm well," the woman said, wiping a glass clean and setting it aside. "And you, Julian? Last I heard, you were barking for a witcher. _The White Wolf,_ how exciting."

Jaskier's heart flipped. His jaunty grin and hometown confidence faltered. "Yeah, well, he sent me away. He blames me for all his mistakes and believes he'd have been better never to have met me." Jaskier waved off the befuddled, concerned look Elena sent him. "It's fine. If he wants to treat me like that, he doesn't need me."

"Hm," Elena hummed, bringing an overturned pint from the shelf and filling it up at the nearby keg. She placed it down before him, and Jaskier sipped gingerly from it. He'd forgotten how good Oxenfurt ale was. She paused for a long moment as he drank. Then, "Why have you returned to Oxenfurt, Julian?"

Jaskier nearly choked.

"I know you left with bad blood between yourself and your grandfather," Elena continued privately. "You came to class often with bruises covering half your face. Why return, if this place holds so many terrible memories?"

Jaskier considered it. It was true; Grandfather was a wretched drunk, and Grandfather was drunk _often._ If he wasn't beating Jaskier with a belt, he was using a paddle. Jaskier was a bastard who never knew his father, and memories of his mother were few and far between; she'd been married off in Kerack shortly after Jaskier had turned five and only visited for Grandfather's annual Yule feast. Any memory of her was marked by the warm golden of happiness, after the feast was over, her porcelain veneer cracking so she smiled wide and held him close.

"Bad memories," he finally began, licking his lips and tasting thin mountain air and snowcapped dragon caves and the dirt beneath Geralt's heel instead of the salty coastal air. "Bad memories aren't _a place;_ they're a figment of the mind. My bad memories can be contained in my mind without affecting my being here. Oxenfurt was the only home I really knew. When all else fails, to home I must return."

Elena eyed him for a long while.

"You've no clue what you're doing here, do you?" she asked, voice a deadpan.

Jaskier laughed humorlessly into his ale. "Not in the slightest."

~*~

Jaskier had begun to stay in the inn above Elena's tavern. He came down for mealtimes to enjoy some warm food and talk with his dear friend, and he performed crowd-pleasers in the evening to keep coin up.

"You," Elena began one evening as Jaskier, sweating and sated, came to sit at the bar after a set, "should be a professor. At the Academy."

Jaskier stared at her for a long while. "I should do _what?"_

"You're a scholar already," Elena started, making a face at her daughters as they emerged from the back, likely with some sort of argument needing sorted as usual. "And you play… upwards of five instruments, if I'm not mistaken, and you compose music and write poetry, _so—"_

"You've lost it," Jaskier said, shaking his head, wagging a finger at her exasperatedly. "You're insane. I'm calling the healer. I'm calling your _husband—"_

"So," Elena repeated more forcefully, setting a glass aside to get into Jaskier's face. "You should become a professor! The university _needs_ more scholars and professors anyhow, and—"

"I _despise_ school, _why_ would I want to go back— "

 _"And,"_ Elena jabbed a finger into his chest, "it's very well paying. And it makes for the _best_ sort of reputation, the legacy-keeping kind. Who wouldn't want to know about the Great Julian Alfred Pankratz, the Continent's finest bard and Master of the Seven Liberal Arts?"

Jaskier shut his mouth with an audible _click_ of teeth.

That… actually wasn't a bad idea.

"Huh," he said, pushing back a wave of sweaty hair. "I'll— need to think about it. Maybe get some other sort of input before I, you know, _take the job."_

Elena patted his arm with a knowing look in her eye, the look of an experienced mother, and turned to address her girls. Jaskier slumped over the bar counter, fidgeting idly.

 _Professor Julian Pankratz._ It was a fine title.

~*~

Jaskier had just finished a set, and planned to go immediately to his room upstairs to pass out, but things never _could_ go his way, could they?

"Young Julian Alfred!" a hearty, joyous voice called from the bar. Elena was already snickering where she stood, serving good ale to a group of past peers and professors alike. The man who'd spoke had an ancient but kind face and familiar eyes. "Come, boy, come sit and drink."

Jaskier picked his way across the tavern to sit at the bar, his lute heavy on his shoulder. "Erm. Hello, then," he greeted, glancing around. He narrowed his eyes at a giggling Elena. "What's all this about?"

"Dear Elena has had you holed up here for so long, I've not seen you the whole time you've been in Oxenfurt," an old colleague, Pierre, said, patting Jaskier's shoulder. “And what a feat! The Julian _I_ knew was out and about every day, performing for the sky itself. What has Elena been offering, for you to have stayed for six weeks without venturing as far as the town square?"

His peers let out a jolly laugh.

"In truth, I've been resting," Jaskier explained. "The past year has been difficult for me. I've had less and less energy as the days pass, but… I fear you might be _right;_ I've _not_ been out enough, and repetitive days spent inside have been taking a toll."

"Well, Young Julian," the first man, old as dirt and grinning wide, spoke as he squinted old eyes at Jaskier, and it only struck him then. _This_ was his old professor, the Academy's concertmaster and musics scholar. Master Francis was talking now, which meant Jaskier was listening intently. "We hear you're in search of a job."

"I wonder who told you that," Jaskier scoffed, raising an eyebrow at Elena.

"The Academy needs scholars to teach," Master Francis said, keen on getting Jaskier to listen. "Between lectures I give on folklore and musics and the choir and opera, I'm wearing thin. I'm not as young as I used to be, and the headmaster and I have been talking… He believes that if I wish to continue with one subject, I must pass on the other. I've been in search of a master scholar with experience enough to teach either, but to no avail. I do not wish to pass it to a student I have not taught."

Jaskier's stomach flipped. Elena squeezed his wrist amiably, excited. The ecstatic murmurs of his peers all around him must have said heaps of the expression he wore.

"You, my former student," Master Francis continued sagely, "are the only person in our time to have successfully spread folklore of your own. To have taken the name of a man spat upon by fellow men and turned him into a hero. I duly request, Julian Alfred, that you take over folklore and musics immediately following the winter holidays."

Jaskier felt a tremor start up in his hands. _The only person in our time to have successfully spread folklore._ Was that what he was known for, here in Oxenfurt, the City of Scholars? Would _that_ be his legacy?

"Master Francis…" Jaskier laughed faintly, feeling lightheaded and bubbly. "I-I don't know what to say, Sir, I—”

"You do," Elena insisted, patting his hand where it rested on the counter and going to her girls from where the called for her.

Jaskier pressed his hands to the counter, then stood with a confidence he'd not _really_ felt since journeying up Dragon Mountains. He grinned, all forgotten youth and golden mirth.

"I honorably accept your humble request, Sir," he said, shaking Master Francis's hand dutifully. He grabbed the pint Elena had left for him on the counter and raised it. "To new beginnings and old friends, eh?"

And the tavern rose up in a battle cry of, _"Hear, hear!"_


	2. waiting for you to come home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see Geralt and Ciri's arrival to Kaer Morhen, and the first time the White Wolf has to stay up to calm his Child Surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I know it's late in the day but damn am I stupid lol. I duped up closing my doc and had to redo all editing so here it is!! just a little late :')

Geralt felt like shit.

Well. That might've been the wound from the alghoul. It definitely _wasn't_ from the shaking child held fast in his arms. The Princess of Cintra.

His Child Surprise.

"Are you cold, dear?" the hospitable wife of the man Geralt had been taken in by asked, reaching out as if to comb a careful hand through Cirilla's hair.

"No…" Cirilla murmured into his shoulder, fisting tighter into his rough cotton undershirt.

The woman's gaze flickered up to eye Geralt briefly before diving back down, forlornly, to the Child Surprise in his arms. "Of course, darling," she said softly. "Dinner should be finished quite soon. May I offer you anything more to drink, Mister Witcher?"

"No," Geralt grunted. Then, grimacing, "Thank you."

And the woman left the small room with a nod. Cirilla peeked out from his shoulder, then tucked her cold nose against his pulse point.

"Your heartbeat's so slow," she breathed in awe.

"All witchers' heartbeats are slow," Geralt responded.

"Kind of makes sense," Cirilla mumbled, then closed her eyes again and settled in as though to take a kip. After a few long, silent moments, she said, "Where will we go?"

Geralt turned to peer out of the small, dirty cottage window. Wet snow laid patchy upon the grass. Winter was just beginning.

"Well," he began, "we witchers tend to winter at Kaer Morhen. I think my brethren and I will begin your training there."

"Training?" Cirilla sat bolt upright, eyes very wide. "I'll be training? As in, _becoming a witcher_ training?"

"Not quite." Geralt shifted so he could face her better. "You're too old to be a complete witcher. I won't let Vesemir put you through the Trials, either. And given your… _gifts,_ I think I might take you to Aretuza eventually to gather some different training there, but your training will not be as steeped as that of a normal witcher's."

Cirilla grunted, sounding not at all eager to begin _any_ training, but Geralt found he couldn't really blame her. She looked downright sleep-deprived, let alone how she _felt._ All that blood, all that carnage and fear and panic.

(He'd only ever smelled so much fear once, not too long ago at all, at the peak of Dragon Mountains, looking into the face of a certain bard as said bard crumbled like ash.)

"So we'll winter at Kaer Morhen," the princess said, voice gone quiet again with uncertainty. "Then… what?"

"We'll put what you learned into practice," Geralt answered, keeping his own voice level. "We won't go any farther south than Sodden."

Cirilla hummed and nodded, and there was something a bit grateful in her face, beneath all that fear and hopelessness.

~*~

Geralt was somewhat thankful for Cirilla's royal upbringing. She already knew how to ride—even on her own—and she knew the most bare basics of sword-wielding.

She was very petite and delicate, however, and indeed stood with a more regal posture than was normal for commonfolk and witchers. Less of an intimidation factor and more of an air of _you must do as I say when I say._ Her hair was extremely well cared-for and her accent was that of a higher class of life.

Geralt would need to retrain her for it.

He was _also_ highly irritated. Roach seemed to like Cirilla more than she liked him. What a picky mare he had.

They somehow managed to make the journey from Sodden to Kaer Morhen in five weeks riding hard.

~*~

"You're alive," Eskel greeted at the outer gate. Roach nickered, trotting up to nudge the other witcher. Eskel gave her nose a pet. "Good. Vesemir wanted a word with you."

Geralt grunted, dismounting his mare and helping Cirilla down. The girl was exhausted and freezing, not that he blamed her. The ride to Kaer Morhen was an exhausting one, and was more often than not taken in temperatures and conditions regular humans could not easily withstand. Even wrapped in the two extra cloaks Geralt owned and having rode the whole way tucked up against his chest, the girl shook from cold. She pressed beneath his arm, tucked to his side, like she'd die a slow death should she leave him for more than a few moments.

Eskel lead Roach to the stables at Kaer Morhen and returned as Geralt reached the main doors to the keep. The blond-haired witcher shoved the large oak doors open with an expecting look toward Geralt. Geralt, finding no other option, sighed and walked inside, leading Cirilla in.

The warmth in the keep only grew as Eskel walked them to the closest thing inside to a den. Vesemir was sat in his chair, smoking a pipe, golden eyes watching the door. Lambert poked at the fire in the hearth attentively, only looking up when Eskel arrived at the hearth itself to shove the ginger over.

"Damn!" Lambert complained, whacking Eskel's calf with the red-hot fire poker. Eskel grunted and hissed, folding to cover the place of injury with a meaty hand. "That's what ye get, you _arse."_

"Enough," Vesemir said calmly, and the argument ended before it had begun.

"Go sit with Eskel and Lambert by the fire," Geralt said, nudging Cirilla in the right direction. "Vesemir and I need to talk."

"The girl needn't be afraid of me," the old witcher hummed, exhaling a small billow of tobacco smoke. "Did you know, girl, you'll have been the first new witcher to see Kaer Morhen in a hundred years?"

Cirilla raised her chin. "Wh-who said I was going to become a-a witcher?" She wrapped the cloaks tighter around herself like a shield, blocking out the rest of the world as easily as she could breathe.

"Aye, you might be right, I reckon," Vesemir relented, and something gleamed in his old, old eyes. "But you'll have been the first _woman_ to walk the Path, should you choose to become a witcher."

The princess looked… _intrigued._ Vesemir beckoned her and she went, reluctant but captivated. Vesemir used the toe of his boot to pull a short and ancient wooden stool to the knee of his chair, and Cirilla, surprisingly enough, sat in the rickety old thing.

Vesemir pulled the hood of the undermost cloak from the girl's head, separated the pale blonde hair with two calloused and capable hands, and hummed softly as he began an intricate braid from far beyond the princess's time. From far beyond even _Geralt's_ time.

With a jolt, Geralt realized what he was doing.

He cast his gaze quickly from the oldest witcher to Eskel and Lambert—who _also_ didn't know what to make of the situation—and back. Cirilla looked oddly appeased, the hunger in her eyes sated for the first time since Geralt had taken her into his custody, and Vesemir looked a bit jolly as well, a small smile tugging at the edge of his lip.

"Geralt," Vesemir said finally, still weaving Cirilla's long hair into the braid. "You're very foolish to have asked for payment in the Law of Surprise. I'd ask if you were short of a few marbles, but many of us are, in this sort of life. In fact, you might just be the sanest of us."

Geralt… didn't know what to make of _that,_ either. "What do you mean, Vesemir?" he forced himself to say, shifting awkwardly.

"You," the old witcher started, flashing darkened gold eyes up at him for the briefest of moments, _"feel,_ well and truly. You feel deeply and brutally, for mages and bards and cursed knights and damnèd royalty. You believe in good and evil, and your moral code is the strongest I've ever seen in a witcher, these bastards included."

Eskel raised a single brow, scoffing, while Lambert continued poking ceaselessly at the fire, unwilling to cut his attention.

"And now: a _child,"_ Vesemir said, and something like satisfaction hummed beneath his tone as he took the elaborate braid and placed it into a bun with one of the soft leather straps one would use to tie hair back. "You might not see it yet, but this Child Surprise might be the best thing to have ever happened to you."

Geralt reeled slightly. Cirilla faintly touched the carefully-done bun at the back of her head in awe and turned to look briefly at Vesemir, then put the full force of her gaze on the White Wolf.

He… didn't know how he'd manage the Lion Cub of Cintra. He supposed all he could do was _try._

~*~

The first night wasn't as difficult as Geralt seemed to think it'd be. On the first full day at Kaer Morhen, the three younger witchers lead the princess around and showed her the grounds and the barren stables while Vesemir rode down into Kaedwen to gather more supplies.

Cirilla took the time out of her tour of the keep to brush and feed each horse, from Roach to Eskel's skittish black stallion affectionately named Scritch and Lambert's old, jaunty dapple grey mare Cobbles. She sang pretty, courtly songs that any other royalty would approve of, as though Calanthe of _all_ people had gotten tutors to teach Cirilla how to be _delicate_ and _choral._ Like that would change how stubborn and adventurous this girl turned out to be.

Lambert scoffed in the midst of a song about a milkmaid having fell in love with a prince. One of those tragedies Geralt knew far too much about writing.

"Can't you sing _anything_ more exciting?" the ginger asked impatiently.

Cirilla squinted at him from the stall for half a moment before she replied, "Ladies don't sing those sort around men."

"We're _witchers,"_ Eskel scoffed gruffly. "Yourself included. Does it matter?"

The girl's hand paused on Cobbles's coat before starting up again. _"O fishmonger, o fishmonger,"_ she sang, and Geralt's heart did a funny twist. _"Come quell your daughter's hunger…!"_

~*~

The second night and second full day went like this: Geralt went to bed in his quarters and woke up in the dull grey light of dawn. He was in a different place, for just half a moment.

It was enough to make him weak. To make him long, to make him _want._

He missed Yennefer and he missed Jaskier, but they were long behind him. Too far out of reach, and they both likely despised him far too much to be any sort of agreeable with him. He'd told Cirilla about Yennefer, that first day when they finally met, but he'd not told her much, and he’d not said _anything_ about Jaskier. Not a single peep about the song she'd sung yesterday, or the catchy tune Lambert had taken to humming in the morning when Geralt first walked in.

It was beyond him now. Yennefer and Jaskier wanted nothing to do with him any longer, and Geralt felt likewise.

(No he didn't.)

They took this day to settle a proper lessons plan with Cirilla. They'd cover more solid sword-wielding, how to attack monsters versus how to defend against other humans. Archery, probably. Most definitely something a bit stronger than the usual Signs, but Aretuza could wait until summer.

Geralt would worry about wilderness training later.

~*~

The third night, as opposed to the first and second, was the hardest.

Geralt woke after midnight from a dead sleep, and didn't have to wonder why after very long. From the hall, long and echoing as it was, came the soft cries of a scared, lonely girl of the tender age of eleven, shuffling exhaustedly away from a nightmare.

Geralt met her at the door.

"You can come in, Cirilla," he offered, keeping his voice gentle and quiet.

The princess keened softly, trudging inside. She stood in the center of the room after Geralt shut the door back, looking out of place in her over-large nightgown, her fair hair tucked into twin braids for sleep.

"Bed's right there," Geralt said, gesturing to the large and obvious bed sitting in the middle of the room. "Go ahead and lie down. I'll sleep in my chair by the window."

Cirilla squinted at him through eyes underlined by dark bags. "…That's all?" she asked, voice thick from tears.

Geralt… didn't know what to say to that.

He grunted, and stood very still, and hoped the girl would take that as his answer.

"You're a _terrible_ guardian," she said wetly, pushing at the tears in her eyes with the heel of her palm as she laughed humorlessly. "Don't you know how to _comfort_ someone? How to _calm?_ Or do they not teach those things here?"

He reeled a little. "I—"

"Forget it. Please," she said quietly. "Just… Something else. _Anything_ else." She paused, hey eyes casting about the room as she sat on Geralt's bed. She shuffled up to the headboard and wrapped his blankets around her shoulders. "Tell me about Yennefer…?"

Geralt ignored the agonizing pull of his heart and instead dragged his seat from the window to the bedside, since it seemed like the most logical route to take. He sat down, to Cirilla's earnest surprise. He folded his arms on the bed and laid his head on them so he didn't have to do the princess the disservice of eye contact just yet.

"Yennefer was born in a place in the kingdom of Aedirn called Vengerberg," he murmured, beginning the story properly instead of telling his Child Surprise simply that he and Yen were a pair bound by destiny that fucked every time they met. "I do not know much about her childhood besides that she was born into some deformity that taught her cruelty very young, and she was never officially inducted into the Brotherhood. She and I met just over two years ago, after a djinn attacked… someone nearby, and I took him to Yennefer so she'd heal him."

He was quiet, waiting for the girl to weigh in as she often did.

She did not.

"Yennefer wanted… power." A shudder reamed down his spine, cold as ice and yet burning like a brand. "She believed that, if she was the amphora the djinn returned to, she would gain all its infinite powers. I made a wish which bound her to myself."

"What about the person she healed?" Cirilla asked suddenly, damnably curious as she was.

"He was," Geralt paused, "healed, for the price of Yennefer's curiosities about witchers being settled."

"Okay," she said, eyes fluttering this way and that, calculating. She opened her mouth to speak, then stalled. "Do you know… what happened to that person?"

Geralt swallowed back the first draft of his answer and replied, "He went his way and I went mine."

_ (I could only hope for the best for him.) _

Cirilla nodded and accepted that as a decent response, and closed her eyes. She rested her chin tucked up onto her knees, holding herself close and tight.

Geralt settled down to tell the story.


	3. if I'm good will you come back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yennefer portals away from Sodden. She's feverish for four weeks, with only a handsome stranger to care for her.
> 
> Jaskier takes care of a fever-ravaged sorceress, and connections grow between them.
> 
> Yen wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> perspectives change from Yen to Jask and back to Yen. TW for self-harm mentions, and Yen being sick and talking about her childhood.

Everything was burning and hurting and _disastrous._

Yennefer had enough sense about her to realize she was summoning a portal as it happened, but not enough to comprehend where in the Continent she'd be going. She was barely conscious as she reigned in her hold on Chaos itself and blacked out.

_ Geralt, _ she thought, and the name echoed intertwined with disappointment and heartache through her psyche. _No. Not Geralt. No._

Yennefer landed somewhere soft and… kinder than Sodden. The light here, while surely faint, was brighter than she could handle. She gripped weakened, bloodied hands into the soft furs about her, eyelids fluttering despite the knowledge that _she couldn't see,_ and had the final thought of _this is nice_ before the world faded, once more, to black.

~*~

Jaskier hadn't been expecting company.

It was winter season. There was a break between the semesters before university let back in, and then he'd be an official professor. _Master Julian Pankratz._ It was strange and inevitable like nothing else could be.

(One thing. Only one thing could be as strange and inevitable.)

And then Yennefer of Vengerberg dropped into his den, and suddenly he was taking care of a feverish, weakened mage. It didn't help that he was particularly _terrified_ of this one, though that went without saying, more often than not. Yennefer was an intrinsically terrifying woman.

She stayed in his bed, dressed in a nightgown Elena no longer fit in and wrapped tightly in his bedclothes. The fever stretched on for four long weeks, and it got worse before it got better. Jaskier bathed Yennefer more than thrice, though he hated dunking the poor woman in icy water to bring down the sobbing pain she was in.

"You're… cute," she said one day, and Jaskier looked up from his desk where he was reviewing Master Francis's notes of the past semester. Yen hadn't spoken in days, and even that had been delirious, hateful screeching and sobbing. Jaskier carefully set aside his notes, turning his attention toward the mage.

"Good morning, Yennefer," he greeted, as he had every morning when the woman awoke.

"Hmm…" She wriggled slightly, eyes hooded but trained on him. "Good morning, bard. Your witcher ever tell you… how cute you are?"

The singing pitch of Jaskier's heart fell flat. _"Your_ witcher," he corrected gently, sitting by Yennefer's side as gingerly as he could. "And no, he never did. How are you feeling?"

He pressed the back of a hand over Yen's forehead which was then adamantly pushed away with a weak grunt. "I'm f— I'm _fine!_ Now I need… t' kick Geralt's arse."

He raised a brow at that. "And why's that?" he asked, concern rising in his chest, thumping like rabbit's feet against his ribcage. _Had Geralt done this to her?_

"B'cause!" Yen cried out, flailing slow hands in a gesture she must've thought explained it all. "He never— Jaskier, he never _told_ you!"

The concern muddied a bit, but stayed its grip on his heart. He tilted his head at her. "Told me _what?"_ he asked, feeling incredulous.

"That you're— That you're _cute,_ bard," Yennefer finished.

He felt as flushed as the poor mage herself, and more than a little befuddled. He pressed writhing Yen back down into the pillows, where she stayed, eyes crossing for a minute as dizziness set in. She looked green around the gills, but she gripped Jaskier's sleeve in a tighter fist than he'd thought she could make, and he stayed.

~*~

"Four marks…"

Jaskier wrung the cloth he'd been dunking in cool water to help bring down Yen's fever, keeping his ear on her. She'd been asleep, though it sounded a bit like she'd wake soon. He turned to place the cloth on her head and stopped in his tracks.

Yennefer's eyes were open, and pointed down to her hands. On either of her wrists were two marks, just beneath the inflamed red blotchiness running up her forearms. Tears dripped sluggishly off her chin, even as Jaskier set aside the cooling cloth and scooted his seat closer to her to ghost a careful hand just at her back.

"Four," she repeated. _"Four_ bloody marks. I'm worth less than a swine at market."

The shockwave of surprise that ran through him was quickly replaced by resolve. He wrapped an arm around her waist, soothing her when she flinched away, and took her nearer hand in his own.

"You're the most powerful mage in your generation," he reminded her. "You saved my life, Yennefer. I don't know your story, but if I know anything about you, it's that you're worth leagues more than whoever told you that you were worth four marks."

"I'm only still alive because you felt you had to repay me…" She shut her eyes, bottom lip quivering and body curling. "For saving your life…"

"You're still alive because I like to believe I’m a fairly good person," Jaskier corrected, sighing softly as he moved from his chair to Yen's side on the bed. "I'd have helped anybody who dropped out of that portal. I just so happened to be blessed with it being you." He swallowed the lump in his throat.

Yennefer sniffled for a few moments before asking, "Even if Geralt had fallen through?"

"Even," he said, as Yen tucked herself close beneath his arm, pressing her head to his chest, "even if Geralt had fallen through."

~*~

"I miss…" Yennefer looked to the ceiling with glazed-over eyes, face open and unguarded, one hand on her own chest and the other sprawled out. "I miss Dimitri and Kasmira and Madeline. And Sable, too, but she was very young when Father sold me to Aretuza. She was— She was very sweet, though, and didn't even mind that I wasn't able to carry her…"

Jaskier didn't know how to respond to that. He didn't know if he was even _supposed_ to respond to that. His mouth gaped open and closed like a fish's, but he couldn't quite even formulate any sort of response, let alone an _appropriate_ one.

"But Father—" Yen turned to him, slow, eyes wide but dulled by fever, forehead prickling with sweat. "—Father didn't like when I was around Sable. Said I was a beast-blood and he didn't want me in the house, let alone near his _real_ children. Stuck up bastard never _did_ get that stick out of his arse, from what I gathered."

Jaskier sat closer, staring curiously at the impossible being before him. Some of the pieces were falling into place. "Your father," he started cautiously. "You said he sold you? To Aretuza?"

"Mm," Yen confirmed, eyes hooded near closed. She held up one wrist faintly. "Four marks. Less than his pigs at market."

Jaskier hummed quietly. "He called you beast-blooded?"

"My father was half-elf," Yennefer said, and her voice was fading now, dragging and muting, and he knew she'd be asleep soon. "My— My _real_ father, that is. Killed in the Great Cleansing. My being part elf cursed me with a crooked spine. Not a pretty childhood…"

Jaskier crossed his arms onto the edge of the bed, setting his chin on them to stare at the curious being before him. _Part elf._ It sort of explained the eyes, he supposed. And maybe, even, her immense power and capacity for Chaos. She reached a weak hand and he met her halfway like he'd been doing it forever.

"I… like you, Jaskier," Yen mumbled, squeezing petite fingers around his own. Her voice was low, now, rasping with oncoming sleep. "You don’t make me sleep in the pigpen. I do like you. Can't say the same for Geralt, but… _you…"_

And then she was asleep, and Jaskier was left to wonder at her.

~*~

Life over the next few weeks came in flashes.

Yennefer often saw a brown-haired stranger hovering over her, often woke out of unconscious mind to find that this stranger was nearby. He appeared by the bedside recurrently, sometimes pressing a cool cloth against her head, hushing her delirious sobs, massaging her sore hands and wrists.

And then Yennefer woke as though from a pleasant dream. Her spine ached and her legs were feeble, and there were pale, whitish scars creeping up her arms that hadn't been there before, but…

But she was awake. She had not died.

Yennefer tentatively swung her legs over the edge of the bed, pushing herself to an unsteady stand. She shuffled a few laps around the room, the four poster bed, even eyed the desk some. She took up the dressing gown on one of the bedposts, pulling it on over the simple white cotton nightgown she was dressed in. She stared at the heavy wooden door leading from personal quarters to outside world for a few considering moments.

Yennefer's stomach made the ultimate decision. If she was going to get any food, after all, she'd _have_ to leave this room. It was that, or wait for the handsome stranger to come back for her, not that she was sure he would.

The hallways were fairly plain, undecorated as this place was. Judging by what Yennefer could see which, given, wasn't a very lot, the home itself was modest. There weren't very many rooms as she passed. Most of the doors were wide open, like the stranger and whoever else who lived here were absentminded and most often in a hurry. There was no Chaos or magic to sense nearby.

"Yes," she heard a vaguely familiar voice call, somewhere further in the house. A chatter somewhere further, as though this person was just outside. "Oh, yes! Of course! I—"

"Hello?" Yennefer called, voice a rasp in her throat, cloying and thick as smoke.

"—have to go," the man finished, a strained smile in his voice. "My, erm… houseguest needs tending to. I'll see you around, my fair Irene. Be sure to tell Elena I said hello next time you’re over that way."

And then the door was shutting and Yen had enough time to register hurried footsteps before, _of all people,_ Jaskier appeared at the open end of the hallway. His blue eyes were very wide. He looked sort of gob smacked, and it looked out of place on his handsome face.

…Hold a second. _When had Jaskier become handsome?_

He wore more formal clothing than his casual, colorful doublet and trousers. It was toned down, a more adult color, and his coat was open to show his usual dainty, lacy chemise. Yennefer stared at him and Jaskier stared back, and had his eyes been so _blue_ before? Truly?

"You're awake," the bard said tentatively.

"So I am," Yennefer confirmed, then cleared her throat. "I need a drink and a meal, if you don't particularly mind."

Jaskier's facial expression went from slight shock and fear to more wide-eyed surprise. "Oh!" he realized, turning about before turning again, and then hurrying to offer his elbow to her. She took it with some amount of trepidation. "Right, this way then. Terribly sorry, I suppose I got used to taking food and drink _to_ you over the past few fortnights."

Yennefer stared at him as though he'd grown a second head, but refrained from replying as he lead her. She knew he'd spill like a horny teenager; sooner rather than later.

"Of course, I hadn't even quite _expected_ you when you finally arrived," Jaskier elaborated. He made a strange face. "I sort of thought I was dying when a shimmery… _thing_ appeared in my den for perhaps an hour before you fell through, but I'd placed my bedding beneath it, too, just in case. And, lo and behold, there you were!" He made a big gesture with his free hand as they entered a room Yen could only assume was the combined kitchen and dining room. Like the rest of what she'd seen of the house, modest and comfortable but undecorated. "Burnt to a crisp and screaming on my den floor. Naturally, I took it upon myself to nurse you back to health. Well…" He made a face, deposited her into a seat at the table, and flitted about in the cupboards anxiously. "…panic madly and _then_ nurse you back to health."

Yennefer didn't have the stability of mind to unpack all of that, even as Jaskier rounded the table with a wooden board piled with the sort of delicacies one only found in the pantries of lords and ladies. Fresh-made bread, a quarter of a wheel of delicious-looking cheese, pomegranate jewels, and slices of recently-roasted yam. He leaned over the back of her chair to set it down before her, and—

Jaskier pressed gentle lips to the crown of her head.

_ Jaskier kissed her head. _

Yennefer whipped around in her seat dizzily as the bard collected a pitcher of water and filled a clayware cup with it. Her heart beat frantically in her chest, and her fingers twitched as her thoughts scrambled into a frenzy. Jaskier looked back as he set the cup beside the board, then continued moving about the kitchen, gathering up a few more things, assumedly for his own dinner.

"You," Yen hissed, face hot and tongue thick in her mouth, "kissed me. On the head."

Jaskier looked up from where he was pulling a freshly roasted fish of some sort from the oven, nearly burning himself and cursing in the process. He set the dish on the rough-hewn wooden counters, setting aside the cloths he'd used and setting his full attention upon her.

It was a lot.

Her heart thumped faster.

"I…" He blinked, befuddled. "Yes. I did. What do you recall of your…?"

"Not much," she admitted, still dizzy. She felt too hot again, like during Sodden after the explosions. "Embarrassingly enough, crying. You rubbed my hands and arms when they ached very badly."

Jaskier nodded, a small flash of… _something_ fleeing across his face. "You cried often," he said, voice gone deep with emotion. "Sometimes you cried about a Tissaia, or Triss, or someone called Istredd, even. Sometimes you called for your mother, and other times you were furious at your father. There were other names, maybe childhood friends or close family, but you cried out for Geralt the most."

The name turned her thoughts sour. She pushed the wooden board of food away at the mention of the witcher's name. That she'd _called_ for him, in her most desperate hour.

"But you recognized me, even with fever," the bard continued, and Yennefer took a long drink of water. Jaskier watched for a moment, enraptured. Then, he said, "You cried because you were in a lot of pain, and you called for me when that pain got to your breaking point. You wouldn't let me leave to sleep, sometimes, but wouldn't allow me to sleep in my chair by your side, so there were times we slept in the same bed." He shook his head earnestly. "I even braided your hair a few nights ago, though you nearly threw a fit when I wouldn't take it out to brush your hair."

Hm. _Interesting._

Yen didn't quite have a sexual drive right now, but she was shocked to realize it was a near thing. She watched Jaskier's elegant hands as he prepared two meals of the roast fish and more of the roast yam. He garnished it with the pomegranate jewels, tucking herbs beneath and sprinkling them atop before bringing the dishes to the table.

"You tried to kiss me a few times, to be fair," the man said softly, blue eyes flickering up from his dishes to point briefly to her before going back. "We made a compromise that I'd give you the occasional kiss on the head or cheek, if only so that you'd let me check your fever without a fuss."

Yennefer took a deep breath, and— _Wow._ That smell was gorgeous. "I didn't know you could cook," she noted aloud, and suddenly her appetite was slamming back. She watched Jaskier tuck into his meal and picked up the utensil he'd given her to eat with. The fish was juicy and flavorful, and the pomegranate jewels gave it a burst of rich sweetness. The yam was tasteful and refreshing on the palate. "This is the best thing I've had in thirty damn years."

Jaskier snorted into a full laugh, and Yennefer found herself laughing as well, however strange.

This thing between them, the dormant tension or whatever it was, it… felt right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos and constructive criticism are very nice :) I try to respond to comments when I'm able, and I'm excited to keep on this story now that I've got it planned through to the end
> 
> come see me on tumblr @spaacey-ace2022 !!!


	4. yell it from the rooftops for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bedding arrangements, and the celebration of Yule in two very different places...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess TW at the very end for mentions of Geralt's mistreatment of Jaskier and Yennefer. I hope you all enjoy this one! I don't remember writing it but I scanned it over for mistakes and corrections so :')

Yennefer was having a hard time reconciling Jaskier with the handsome stranger from her flashes of recollection.

Of course, she was _also_ having a bit of a struggle at reconciling the-witcher's-travelling-bard Jaskier with this new, dresses-his-age-and-wears-spectacles-when-he-reads Jaskier. They were two different worlds with very few things connecting, and one of those constants was the priceless lute Jaskier owned, but _didn't_ happen to be obnoxious chatter-and-song at every ungodly hour of the days and nights.

This Jaskier was reserved and much quieter, thoughtful, _pensive_. He had people over every once in a while, scholars and old friends and the like, and went out to the Academy here in Oxenfurt (which is how she found out she'd made it all the way to fucking _Oxenfurt,_ for Melitele's sake). He typically brought back fresh bread and the occasional piece of new clothing when he went out, and he began cooking supper in the early afternoon and had Yennefer watch it (which is how she learned how to properly cook) until it finished.

And Yennefer couldn't tap into Chaos.

She'd be loathe to admit she _might have_ thrown a fit when she learned that, and said fit maybe perhaps put her in bed for the rest of the insufferable evening as Jaskier sat by the bedside in his chair and shuffled through sheaves of parchment with his gods-damned reading specs and—

And he took _care_ of her, now. Gave her a peck on the cheekbone or forehead or pate every once in a while, and pressed his own forehead briefly to hers on the even rarer occasion. Every time it happened, she told herself it'd be the last time, that she'd push Jaskier away, strike him across the face, something like that. Every last time, Yennefer still let it happen. She even found herself leaning to accept the farewell kiss to her cheek or the greeting kiss to the crown of her head.

It was tonight she realized, however, something they'd never spoken about.

"Where do you sleep?" she asked, finger pausing in its smooth glide across the scroll she'd been scanning for answers about Chaos—easily accessed, being so close to Aretuza—as she sat at the dining table in her usual seat.

Jaskier paused in putting together a wooden tray for the midday meal, looking up absently and then looking over his shoulder at her. "What do you mean?" he asked back, which _definitely_ didn't answer her question.

"I _mean,"_ she said, "you're in the room when I go to sleep, but you wake before me, as you're usually up and about before I am. You don't sleep in your bed because _I_ sleep in your bed, so where _do_ you sleep?"

"There's a guest bedroom first door to the left when you leave my bedroom," the man answered, a smooth, practiced flow to his words. "I sleep in the smaller bed there, with the door slightly ajar so I can hear if you're in distress."

Yennefer stared blankly at him and he stared blankly back.

"You sleep in the chair beside your bed, you mean," she stated, seeing through the too-careful story.

Jaskier coughed into a fist, looking away. He went back to putting their small lunch together. "Yes, I do."

"If you're not lying about the guestroom," Yen decided, "I'll sleep there." Jaskier perked up, making to argue. "Or! _Or,_ Jaskier, since your bed is quite large and far too much room for one person to utilize _alone,_ you can sleep on one side and I'll sleep on the other."

She ignored the helpless, adamant beating of her own frenzied heart and kept her gaze fixed to the bard steadfastly.

The man seemed to think on it for a long few moments. Then, after a while, he finally said, "Fine. But it's just for now! If it becomes inappropriate, I'll leave the bed immediately."

"Deal," Yen said, and they went about eating lunch.

Jaskier slept the best he had since Yennefer first arrived that night, and it was safe to say Yennefer did too.

~*~

Winter had fully settled in, and Cirilla was already well into training.

Geralt thought, perhaps, he felt pride well in his chest like the swell of the tides, when she finally began making more bullseyes than missing from atop Roach as his mare galloped full speed. It'd taken _weeks,_ and that practice had proven necessary.

Something was different about today, though. Cirilla seemed confused and befuddled when they'd first lead her outside, and said feeling only grew as the day wore on, her confusion fueling small fits of anger and frustration during battle practice. Geralt couldn't quite determine what was setting her off today, but she'd not come to him the night prior out of a nightmare, and she didn't smell like she did when she bled.

When the pale grey sky began to darken, Lambert was the one to call it, coming out of the keep after a quick nip inside to alert them that Vesemir was nearly finished making supper. Cirilla eagerly went through the motions of putting up Roach's tack and brushing her down before heading inside, throwing off cold, wet overclothes as she walked through the keep. Geralt, with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, was forced to pick up after the girl, despite having told her she needed to learn to pick up after _herself._

Eskel laughed at him. _Bastard._

They all sat at the long table in Kaer Morhen and ate, and went to sit in the den, where Lambert went about poking the flames and Eskel set to sharpening his knives. Geralt felt tense, however, like something big was going to happen, and _soon._

"Where…?" Cirilla's voice faded out, hesitant, a little hopeless. Geralt looked at her, took in her turmoil, and straightened up so she could comfortably address him. Her resolve hardened, just that little bit, and she went on. "Where's the evergreen? And the candles?"

Geralt felt his own bewilderment rise. "What… do you mean?" he asked, unsettled, shaken in his own core. "Why would we need an evergreen and candles?"

Lambert looked up from the fire he was poking, and something a bit miffed flashed over his face. "Oh damn," he said, and he stood, patting his hands clean. "I should've checked that you wanted to celebrate Yule. I chopped a good log for it, though."

Cirilla seemed a little settled by this, but not enough to ease the sudden flush of anger. "The celebration of Yule, the longest night of the year, the rebirth of the Maiden! Keeping the Yule log burning and the candles lit to draw back the sun, holly at the windows and fireplaces to ward off evil, wreaths for the year's cycle. Gingerbread, and fruits and berries, and cider. I figured, at first, maybe you lot just celebrated it differently, that my years of growing up in grandeur served my perspective in a different light, but you just… _didn't celebrate."_

Lambert took this moment to return, arms heavy with a thick log. He stood in the doorway for a few long moments, then sat in his usual place beside the hearth, and turned his attention to Cirilla, whose anger had all but fled her. Her cheeks were rosy as she huffed, eyes rimmed red as tears began to collect.

Geralt stared at his Child Surprise in shock and a fair bit of concern, but couldn’t get his mouth to move.

"We witchers," Vesemir began, when it was evident that Geralt surely had no words to respond, "are very set in our ways. We winter here, with as little contact with humans as possible. Traditions a thousand years ago were not as they are now, but…"

Cirilla looked up, and she looked… _her age._ It was shocking every single time Geralt saw her like this, realized again and again, just how _young_ she was. A frightened but hopeful eleven-year-old girl, awaiting the day she'd find home.

It hit him now that she _hadn’t_ yet.

"But that doesn't mean we can't change," Vesemir finished. "So, how about this: tomorrow, early in the morn, the five of us will all travel to Kaedwen, and we will buy sweets and cider and candles, and I'll show you how to make a wreath when we return."

The light came back to the girl's pale eyes. Her bottom lip trembled, and she nodded once, resolutely, before Lambert beckoned her near the hearth so he could place the Yule log in. When Vesemir and Eskel pointed a glare at him from either side, Geralt went to sit by the hearth, too, on Cirilla's open side.

"—and I killed the mighty griffin as she let out," Lambert was murmuring, hands gesturing wildly as he retold the tale, "a great, horrific roar."

Cirilla watched on with awe. Geralt hoped he wasn't imagining when she leaned her head against his shoulder, but he and Lambert shared stories of great renown through the night regardless.

(He didn't think he'd miss telling stories so much. Even if the girl _did_ have to prod him for details, much like a certain bard he’d once known.)

~*~

They were snowed in.

Jaskier's house had recently been made up for Yuletide celebrations, and then they'd woken up one morning to find they'd been snowed in. Yennefer could feel the cold in her joints, even as she set beside the fireplace with upwards of three fur blankets around her.

Jaskier played a chord from the dining room that made a sort of _twang_ sound toward the end. The chord was followed closely by a frustrated growl and erratic scribbling.

"What are you trying to write, Jaskier?" she called, careful not to shift any furs to falling off.

"It's nothing," the man replied immediately, which meant not _only_ was it a new song, it was one meant to be _important_ to him.

"Come here," she called. Silence. "Jaskier, I _mean_ it, I may not know much about music in theory, but I've been alive over seventy years. I've picked up a thing or two."

Finally, Jaskier shuffled from the dining room to the den, settling beside her near the fireplace. She could feel the heat radiating from his body through the pile of blankets she'd amassed. He flicked a small melody on his lute, then pressed his fingers flat against the fretboard, stilling the sound with a grimace. He looked up at her with reproachful eyes, seemingly hesitant to tell her about what in the Continent he was writing.

"Let me see," Yen said, reaching for the song book Jaskier still carried. He handed it over, and she opened it up. The page it landed on was marked by rough scratch-out and short lines of winding poetry.

"In honor of his Child Surprise," the bard admitted. He didn't need to say _whose_ Child Surprise it was for her to know. "The Lost Lion Cub of Cintra. I only played in her presence once, at her naming celebration, but I was present at the castle several times after, when the princess was still a wee bairn. Nobody knows if she made it out alive, but Nilfgaard still seems set on going after her, which means she probably _is_ still alive."

"And the whole world is against the royalty of Cintra right now," Yennefer found herself saying as she read on. The song was slow and winding as the poetry that accompanied, but… it wasn't _right._ It didn't fit. She pointed at the second verse. "I understand your knack for pretty ballads and somesuch, but it needs to go faster, here."

Jaskier made a funny face, leaned over the song book, and began to play a slow, dwindling tune. The tune fell into repetition and his voice took up a contrasting melody. _"Awake awake, you children bold…"_

Yennefer listened, entranced, to Jaskier's newest piece. It had some sentimental bits she suspected were allusions to Geralt's last interaction with him, and sat in the perspective of a spectral outsider, or maybe someone of familial relativity who could no longer be there but could watch and protect from afar. At the swell of the piece, stinging tears sprung to her eyes, and Jaskier strummed frantically, and then the song slowed and the last verse emerged, tired but enlightening and hopeful.

"You might be," she said at last, brushing tears away from her own eyes, "the greatest composer in the last sixty years, Jaskier. At _least._ What else is in this book which you've yet to play?"

They spent the day travelling Jaskier's poetry, his unheard songs, tweaking melodies and correcting tall tales. When she asked, he told. _The Summer Song:_ a tale of his springing fully formed from a patch of buttercups and dandelions with a flower crown upon his head and a song upon his lips. _Prayers on the Lips of the King and the Commonfolk:_ a pretty and elaborate ballad of the horrors of monsters and how these beasts did not discriminate. _The Butcher's Bride…_

"Huh," Jaskier said, squinting. He drew his spectacles from his coat pocket, pressing a finger to the page and reading the sloppy lines. "Must've wrote that when I was drunk."

Yennefer frowned at the precise and dizzyingly chilled lines of the song, _completed,_ unheard and forgotten. "You don't recall this?"

"I recall finishing _Her Sweet Kiss,"_ the bard answered. "But then I got drunk and landed in Novigrad much sooner than I should've since I'd been coming from Dragon Mountains."

Yennefer felt something sting in her chest as she read a particularly scathing line about the husband— _the Butcher—_ abandoning his bride, the subject of the song. "Right," she murmured. "Is this about me or you, then?"

Jaskier looked up, clear blue eyes locked on her for a long few moments, calculating.

"Right. Not sure," she sighed. She scanned the next few lines. "I was around to hear about Geralt of Rivia before _and_ after he was the Butcher of Blaviken, and while he did often abandon me and did claim me as his by fate, he never… _berated_ me so heavily, Jaskier."

She glanced over. Jaskier's mouth was pressed closed, and his blue eyes were turned decidedly _away,_ but she could see the low whisper of eyelashes shadow his cheekbones. Time was stripping the color from the hair at his temples. She was loathe to admit she'd miss him when he'd gone.

"I've an idea," Yennefer finally broke the silence. Outside, the snow wore on. Inside, the mage (sans her Chaos) took up a quill and her bard's ink pot and scratched out a word in the title, replacing it with another.

 _The Barker's Bride_ was written lovingly on the line.

"Rewrite the story," she said, passing the song book back. "Make it something you _want_ to remember, Jaskier."

Jaskier stared down at the title for a long time, plush pink lips ajar, mouth gone dry. Then, he tucked Yennefer up under his arm, flipped to a new, unused page, and titled it with the same care the sorceress had, a new story. _The Barker's Bride._

It was Yule, the longest night of the year, which meant they had all the time in the world to get this right, even if they had to start again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> "The Summer Song" and "The Butcher's Bride" are both references to two other fics I've read. The Summer Song's theme is referencing a similar song in ao3 user bloomerie's series "buttercup," which is Female!Jaskier and also very beautifully written, though I'd read the tags for possible triggers. "The Butcher's Bride" is an actual title of a made-up song in ao3 user shortcrust's series "you follow?" which is very lighthearted and fun, and very funny. I recommend both these series, if you'd like to search them.
> 
> as always, kudos and comments are much appreciated, and you can find me on tumbler @spaacey-ace2022


	5. only scarecrow left in oz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciri's training, and the introduction of a new horse to the stables and pasture at Kaer Morhen.
> 
> Geralt is having strange dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for brief training sequence at the beginning. It's not very violent, and there's no blood involved, but they're training with actual weaponry. Another TW for close to the end of Ciri's part: mentions of blood, death, and the defeat of Cintra.

_Slash. Stab. Block, catch. Disarm._

Ciri repeated the movements until she could feel it in her bones. Lambert lunged. She slashed. He brought his blade down. She blocked, made a lunge at him. Geralt watched from the sidelines with the same haunting eyes he always did, and Eskel called out every other movement, drilling her on monsters from the sidelines as she fought.

"Manticores!" he hollered.

"Head of a human, body of a lion," she answered, bringing down her sword with all her weight. Lambert pivoted and blocked. "Scorpion tail. Invincible mane."

"Griffins, what about griffins?"

"Front half an eagle, back half—" She grunted tremulously as Lambert began to disarm her. "—of a lion. So many _lions."_

"Tell me about kikimoras," the blond-haired witcher yelled.

Lambert disarmed her, and Ciri fell backward, dizzy from adrenaline. In her peripheral, she saw Geralt look to Vesemir, who stood still as a statue at the very edge of the lawn. Vesemir shook his head gravely, and Geralt turned his golden eyes back to the field. Ciri even thought that, for a moment, there was something like desperation on his face before he smoothed it clean like a blank surface of marble.

"Eskel, trade out with Lambert," the White Wolf grunted.

Ciri hoisted herself back to her feet, exhausted as she was, and sheathed her blade to take out the training knives. Eskel practiced closer quarters. Lambert preferred longer swords.

"Where are _you_ going?" Eskel asked as Lambert turned toward the edge of the field, the entrance to the keep. Ciri turned to watch him go, cold and wet from her tumble into the slush.

"To finish packing my things for the road," Lambert answered, waving one hand as he disappeared into the dark.

That… was _weird._

"I thought witchers spent the whole winter here?" Ciri asked, attention split between her caretaker and her opponent.

"We do," Geralt answered. "Word came up when Vesemir last went into Kaedwen. Apparently, the elves at the Edge of the World have taken some mages hostage. Aretuza asked for a witcher. They _wanted_ me. Pay attention."

That last bit was spoken half a second before Eskel drove in to strike, and Ciri blocked and disarmed _immediately,_ picking out the blond's blind spots and openings, which was leagues better than even the _day_ prior. Eskel still managed to dodge with the one dagger, and soon they were an eye for an eye.

"Kikimoras," Ciri began, keeping her voice low, "are insectoid creatures, with dry black skin stretched grotesquely over their spindly bodies and glassy black eyes with sideways pupils and thin, needle fangs. They have long, spidery legs and a piercing screech, and they fester underground and in swamps and marshes."

Eskel pushed her back. "And wyverns?"

"Flying reptiles," Ciri summed. "Snake necks, trident tails. Like dragons but— _worse._ Attack even when not provoked. Not sentient at all, unlike their draconic cousins."

This is the point where she and the witcher became locked by their blades, trapped in a war of block-and-disarm that neither could undo. Heat and ozone prickled Ciri's skin. When she grunted from the effort, the sound had an echo factor.

Eskel misstepped in his attempt to push her back. Ciri lunged with an outcry that cleared the area around her of slush. The witcher's dagger flew from his hand, and he laid on his back in the wet, cleared grass. Ciri fell to a crouch, knee against Eskel's chest, her knife pressed to his throat. She wouldn't _gut_ him, of course, but this part would determine that her opponent had been bested. Eskel tapped her forearm and she moved to standing once more.

"Very good," the blond praised, and the smile pulled at the scarring on his mouth and cheek. "Fine thinking, using your magic to aid you in battle. She's gaining better control, Geralt."

Geralt grunted, arms crossed. He looked once more to Vesemir, who studied the area before finally nodding his approval.

"Finished training for today," her guardian said, and Ciri exhaled in relief. "Go to your room when you get inside, Cirilla, and change into dry clothes. We'll be escorting Lambert to Kaedwen."

She frowned, collecting her training blades and sheathing them before she followed Eskel toward the keep. "Why…?"

Geralt gave her a side-eye, and… _was that a smirk?_

She skipped to catch up; it _was._ The infamous Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf himself, was just _barely_ containing a grin.

"You're _smiling,"_ she pointed out, heart thumping like rabbit's feet against her ribcage. "What're you smiling about? What's in Kaedwen, Geralt?" She snickered as a thought came to her. "Is it a _surprise?"_

"Ha," the witcher said, deadpan. "Very clever." He continued his march into the keep. "…Yes."

It wasn't very long before they were setting off again. Lambert loaded Cobbles down with his bags, and Geralt had Ciri put Roach's tack on before she climbed up. The witcher sat in the saddle behind her, and she and Lambert kept slow, steady conversation as they made the hour’s ride from Kaer Morhen to Kaedwen.

Lambert left off from Kaedwen with a clap on the shoulder to Geralt and something of a tender hug for Ciri. Cobbles gave an impatient whinny.

"Make sure he doesn't get into any trouble before I get back," the ginger witcher said, mounting his gray mare once more. He gave her a jaunty grin. "Kick Eskel's stupid arse for me!"

And then he was turning and trotting down the trail, into the thick of the woods, leaving Kaedwen and Geralt and Ciri behind.

"What's the surprise?" Ciri asked after a long time, her breath making fog in the air. She shivered, and Geralt raised an eyebrow, taking Roach by the reigns and leading her and Ciri to a fair-sized stable.

It was bigger than the usual village stable, and there was a stand out front advertising saddles, bits, and reigns. Geralt tied Roach to a post nearby, and hesitantly offered up his elbow, as a courtly gentleman would. Ciri didn't know what to do other than take it.

"Mare or stallion?" he rumbled.

The puzzle slowly began to click together. "You mean, for _me?"_

"Yes," Geralt confirmed, eyebrows furrowing. "Do you want a mare or a stallion?"

"Stallion," Ciri said immediately, her thoughts on Grandmother's old warhorse called Sunshine, the steed which nipped at everyone's fingers but hers. Geralt nodded. "Will I get to name him?"

"You'd better hope so," Geralt replied, and she couldn't help the laugh she let out.

The owner of the stable had a wider selection of mares this season, but the few stallions Ciri _did_ see were still friendly and seemed to like her. Fully grown, strong and handsome, and…

And there was a young, cream golden-brown stallion—practically a _colt—_ stamping his hooves at the very last stall. He let out a nicker, as if to say, _Well, what are you waiting for?_ and Ciri just about fell in love. She looked to Geralt before scooting to the last stall, and the witcher materialized at her side with an apple and one of his hunting knives. He sliced the apple in half and cored it before passing her the two halves.

"This is the one, then?" he asked, sheathing his knife.

"I think so," Ciri replied, and she slowly moved to offer the apple halves to the colt, palm flat like Geralt had shown her those very first few weeks with Roach. The colt sniffed at it, hot breath humid against her pale skin. He took it from her hand, licking a blood-hot and sticky tongue across her palm, and she giggled at the sensation.

The colt backed away to chew on his treat, and Ciri pulled her hand away.

"Palomino saddlebred," the owner crowed as he approached. The colt flicked his tail moodily. "He's a young one, aye. I 'aven't even named him yet. I'll offer 'im fer the low price of, em… seventy-five crowns!"

"Fifty," Geralt responded, not taking his eyes off the stable owner.

"Hm," the owner said, narrowing his eyes. "Sixty-five, no less."

"Forty," the witcher argued, and a growl came to his voice. "This one is young, and I'll tell you now that you will not get a higher price than forty- _five_ crowns, given his… _personality."_

The owner groaned in frustration. "Deal," he finally said. "The palomino saddlebred colt fer forty-five crowns."

The buying process didn't take as long as Ciri thought it would've, as she and Geralt were putting the colt into his tack after very long, well-made saddle, bit, and reign of black leather and iron. Ciri lead the colt around in a few circles, and he obeyed almost eagerly. Geralt even brought over Roach to meet the new addition to Kaer Morhen's stables and pasture, and they got along about as well as could be expected.

"Have you thought of a name for him?" Geralt asked as they lead their respective steeds through the wide streets of Kaedwen, perusing different stalls.

The question took Ciri by surprise. "I haven't, actually," she admitted. Her colt nickered, then huffed. He looked a bit like a flower, with his mane and coat the colors they were. "Hm. Buttercup, I think."

The colt huffed again, butting her face, and she laughed, petting his muzzle. Geralt hummed, nodding his head. A strange expression flitted across his face, but then he was leading Roach over to another post and Ciri followed. She tied Buttercup to the post as well, and he nickered again, sulky.

"What are we stopping for now?" she asked.

"Riding boots," Geralt said. "And proper sheaths for proper weaponry, as well as bracers for your arms and shoulders, I should think. New clothes, perhaps. More appropriate for training and travelling in the spring and summer."

They spent the rest of the dwindling afternoon getting Ciri sized for riding boots and travel gear, taking her measurements for a proper belt to carry her knives and swords, though she had no doubt she'd one day carry the swords on her back as Geralt did, and then _more_ measurements for bits of custom armor. In any case, she spent the afternoon laughing and watching the White Wolf’s steady walls crack, just a little, with every little giggle she let out.

When asked by the tailor what dye she'd like her clothing to be colored in, she thought of a witcher's armor, a sorceress's eyes, and the skies painted in shades of blood and wine and answered, "Black, violet, and red."

No more royal Cintran blue. The princess was dead in the ground amongst the mass graves within the city walls. Ciri had left that girl behind, for now.

When she mounted Buttercup for the first time, the colt became agitated. Ciri petted his mane, and when he calmed, he fell into trot easily beside Roach. They traveled together from Kaedwen to Kaer Morhen, and Ciri felt… _content._ She thought of the witchers, Vesemir, Eskel, Lambert, their horses, Geralt. The mysterious figure of a sorceress's shadow cut out beside her guardian, absent but alive and out there, somewhere.

It felt—just a little bit—like a _family,_ a _real_ one, pulling together at the seams.

~*~

Geralt laid awake well into the night.

Where was Yennefer? Was she safe? Was she _alive,_ even after Sodden? Even if she _was,_ what then? He didn't think he could be in the same room as her without her attempting to throttle him. He didn't think he could bear the disappointment pressed snugly against his mind, should he ever introduce Cirilla to the mage.

_If_ she were alive.

(Geralt profusely blocked any thoughts of Jaskier out of his mind, even after the princess had given her steed a name like _Buttercup,_ even after thoughts of Yennefer sprung with them the song that haunted the Continent as the assumed last of the bard's pieces pressed into his mind. His longing would not consume him.)

When he finally dropped off into a restless sleep, Geralt heard a winding melody, new and strange, and felt heartache swell and subside like the tide, replaced by joyous, triumphant love. In his dreams, he saw a wide bed, occupied by the two characters of his longing, laying side by side, no less than a foot of space between them, their fingers laced together over top of the bedding. A flush colored the bard's stubbled face, and a streak of white that had not been there before ran through Yennefer's long black hair.

He awoke alone, in a cold bed. He missed his two closest companions, no matter how much he told himself otherwise, and he could almost picture _himself,_ in that space Jaskier and Yennefer had kept between themselves.

It felt a little wrong. It felt… _right._ Geralt didn't know _how_ it was supposed to feel. All he knew was that _he_ felt.

His heart thrummed a slow, staccato beat in his chest as he breathed in the crisp, cool air of his chambers.

Yennefer, at least he knew, was alive, however her condition might affect her. And she was with _Jaskier,_ for that matter.

Geralt got out of his bed to begin the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this one, and that it was well worth the wait. I've been really excited about this one, despite it not being a very big plot point, but it's the end of this act of the story. Next Saturday will begin Act 2, which will contain more excitement the likes of which this world has never seen :D
> 
> kudos and comments are greatly appreciated, and you can find me on tumbler at @spaacey-ace2022


	6. the song you know's begun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier begins teaching, and one of his students seems to have taken a shining to his personal life. It's a good thing he's fond of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No TWs for this chapter except maybe a mention of sex/sexual intimacy but they're only mentions. medieval nudity (Jaskier takes off his doublet one (1) time outside), and introducing: Priscilla (Witcher games)/Essi (books). I use the name interchangeably, and she's only Jaskier's student in this fic, not a love interest :)

He was late for the first day back.

This had been a long-standing tradition for him, way back when he attended University as a _student,_ but Jaskier really had to ditch the habit. He was a _professor_ now, for Melitele's sake! He couldn't just… _show up late._

As it was, he _did_ show up late, tugging his long winter robe straight as he rushed through the door, setting his lute case gingerly behind the podium he was supposed to already be standing at, pushing his too-long hair back and away from his face, _gods he needed to shave his face of this dastardly stubble,_ and that's when he realized he'd forgotten the hand-bound leather book filled with lesson plans he'd purposefully set on the dining room table.

The students— _his_ students—stared, part in interest and part in confusion. There weren't many of them; Jaskier could count them on both hands. Five young men and three young women. The chairs had been arranged in a semi-circle surrounding the podium, the long oak table sitting at the back of the small lecture hall. Each student had a small pack at their feet and each were accompanied by their own instrument.

"Uh," Jaskier said, standing straight. He fixed his robes once more, stepping up to the podium. "Hello. I'm the new professor for this course."

The students looked at each other in vague confusion before a young woman with long blonde hair and pale green eyes lit up with realization.

"Oh!" she said. "You must be Master Pankratz. Master Francis spoke highly of you. He mentioned leaving this course, but not more than twice. It's an honor to finally meet you, Sir."

Jaskier felt surprise ripple over his expression. "Right. What's your name, then?"

"Priscilla," the young woman said, crossing her hands politely over her lap. She gave him an innocently charming smile, radiant and joyful.

"Well met, Priscilla," Jaskier answered. He cast his gaze upon the handful of curious students. "You all may call me Master Pankratz, or Master Julian, or even simply Jaskier. Now, what might all _your_ names be?"

He stepped off the podium, going around the semi-circle to shake the hands of sophisticated young men and kiss the knuckles of star-struck young women. From right to left, there was Priscilla, Zachariah (dark skin and curly black hair, enthusiastic about the course), Maryanne (tan skin with brown hair and dark eyes, callused fingers and a farmer's build with a rough voice), Knowlton (blond hair and pale skin, taking the course to satisfy his parents), Franz (pale, brown hair, from Rinde judging by his accent), Juliette (petite, ginger hair, tinkling voice), Eugene (dark skin, hazel eyes, multilingual), and Lance (ginger hair, freckled young face, surprisingly deep voice).

"I do hope to get to know you lot and get along with you over these few months before the summer holiday," Jaskier said, bowing handsomely as though he'd just finished a set. When he rose again, he admitted, "I'm afraid I left my lesson plans at home, however. I was very… distracted this morning."

It was true. He and Yennefer had gotten ever closer to each other through the winter, and quick, meager kisses to the forehead or cheek had turned into shy pecks on the lips turned into nuzzling into necks and suckling sweet spots. Jaskier's face flushed at the memory of the morning, Yennefer pinning him against the table and biting his lip, Yennefer curving scarred hands over his hips, his waist, skirting up his sides. The flirtatious gleam in her violet eyes. The streak of snow white marking her dark, perfectly done hair.

He cleared his throat. "Right," he said, smoothing a wave of hair back and away from his line of sight. "Can one of you remind me where Master Francis left off?"

Priscilla shuffled through her pack, unearthed a hand-bound book, and flipped through it. "He planned on giving us our first composition project coming back from holiday."

"Did he?" Jaskier stepped up to the podium, gripped the sides with his hands. The students watched on. It felt… _different._ A good different, maybe. He could get used to this. "All right, then. The project I'm assigning you is… compose a ballad. A proper _story._ You can use any instrument you're able to play, that includes your own vocal talent, and I'm going to allow you to use other vocal talent if you need."

The students murmured to each other. Jaskier watched with growing uncertainty. He barely kept himself from bolting right there and then.

Zachariah raised his hand. "Master Pankratz, what might you wish be the, erm… _subject_ of the ballad?"

"Are we limited to how many verses the ballad might contain? Juliette pitched in.

"Are we limited to how much vocal talent we can use as well?" Lance asked.

"Any subject of your choosing," Jaskier clarified. "You may use as many verses as the story needs to tell it completely. You are not limited to how much vocal talent you use, nor are you limited by instruments. It's your story to tell."

The students all sat and stared at him for a long moment.

"Well?" he asked, gesturing vaguely. "Get to work! This is the first half of the project; you'll have it performed next month. Go!"

~*~

At the end of the week, Jaskier discovered Yennefer's new business.

According to the mage, she couldn't tap into her Chaos. It was insofar inaccessible, and she spent each evening meditating to try unblocking the barrier barring her from reaching Chaos. Whatever happened between when Jaskier left in the morning and when he returned after a day of teaching was left to the imagination.

That is, until now.

Jaskier woke to kisses against the tender spot beneath his ear. He turned, groggy, and pressed his forehead against Yennefer’s—a Keracki kiss, something his mother had accustomed him to—in greeting. She smiled, pushing in to press her lips against his, and…

 _Well._ He didn't need to get into _that,_ now, did he?

In the late morning, Jaskier sat at the dining table, warming his hands on Yen's delicate china instead of drinking the tea inside. He wore one of Yennefer’s gossamer dressing gowns, comfortable and lazy, and Yen had been sprawled about in one of his lacy chemises until now. She returned from the bedroom wearing a casual dress, patterned in alternating diamonds of white on black. The sleeves were long and black, with the right one accented white to the elbow. She looked elegant and regal, and Jaskier stared in awe for a few moments.

"What's all this?" he purred, waggling his eyebrows in a manner he meant to be saucy but turned out very funny and teasing.

"Court casual," Yennefer answered. "I picked it out on your first day. And then I came back and tended to my herb garden. Did you know poultices and potions can be made without access to Chaos?"

Jaskier raised both eyebrows expectantly.

"I've earned," Yennefer said with a triumphant grin, "nearly ninety crowns in the past five days alone."

"Right." Jaskier stood and made for the bedroom, nodding. He couldn't help being impressed; Yennefer _would_ find some way to make money despite being unable to perform magic. She was, in no way, a helpless woman. "Time to get to work, then. I'll just be dressed, then I'll help where you need."

"You'll be outside more often than not," Yen called back to him. "No heavy scholarly robes or fleece-lined coats. I'd suggest lighter clothes; the sun is out with a vengeance today."

Jaskier's options in clothing were then left to light travelling trousers and matching doublet, with his chemise and smallclothes, and his tall walking boots. The sun _was_ out today, though late morning still held enough of a chill that he could get away with wearing his doublet _open,_ thank you very much. He spent the day whistling half-finished melodies, gathering herbs and certain flower blooms for Yen and bringing them inside. Past midday, the sun was beating down, so the doublet came off and the frilly sleeves of his chemise were rolled up.

It wasn't _exactly_ public nudity. He'd seen women in less when working in the garden. And his legs were still fully covered; it was still appropriate.

"Master Julian?" a familiar voice called.

Priscilla stood at the low fence surrounding Yen's back garden. She wore the colorful clothes of a performer, and her lute case was slung over a shoulder casually. The reds and blues of her outfit made her look _bigger,_ somehow, more eccentric, gave her more personality. She wasn't the pale, modestly-dressed student in his lecture hall taking eager notes and scribbling every second he saw her.

"Good morrow, fair Priscilla," Jaskier said, a bit breathless from the heat and his work, giving an overdone bow. "What might you be doing, young lady? Running about in such whimsical clothes."

Priscilla smiled brightly. "I was stopping by to visit the subject of my ballad before I went to town square to perform for coin, Sir."

"And who might that subject be?" Jaskier leaned over the fence eagerly, brushing off the dirt from his hands and onto his trousers. "Someone on the street, I reckon."

"Well," the young woman began, "my mum sent me here earlier this week to fetch a potion to cure my young brother's illness, and Miss Yennefer likes conversation when she does her fixings, so she and I talked. Did you know, Master Julian, she's a _sorceress,_ a real life magic-wielder, who knew Geralt of Rivia as a lover, once." She crinkled her nose. "A _bitter_ one, given, but what's passed is in the past." She smiled once more, cheery.

Jaskier's eyebrows nearly flew off his face. "You mean the Yennefer that lives _here,_ in the house whose back garden I am now standing in," he said flatly.

Priscilla frowned, face scrunching up as her gears turned. She looked up suddenly and panic raced across her face. "Oh!" she yelped. "Oh, Master Julian, I truly _do_ apologize. I swear I hadn't realized! Miss Yennefer _did_ mention being married to a scholar nowadays, but I-I'd never… I hadn't _realized,_ Sir, I'm sorry."

Yennefer chose this moment to emerge, having a lull in customers and likely a hankering for lunch. She paused in her tracks, one hand on the doorframe and the other holding open the heavy backdoor.

"Hello, Essi," she greeted, like they were old friends, and not Jaskier's lover and Jaskier's student, which… _honestly_. "I'm about to have a lunch with my dear lover, darling, but you're welcome to come back afterward."

"It's all right," Jaskier said, feeling a bit faint. He blamed it on the heat. "Priscilla can join us for lunch. She's one of my students, you know."

"Oh," Yen replied. Then, _"Oh._ Okay, then. Inside, the both of you, it seems we might need to have a bit of a chat."

Which is how Jaskier ended up sitting at his dining room table, cleared of Yennefer's work, with his lover and his student. Priscilla— _Essi—_ had pulled out one of her notebooks, the song-writing one, but it and her corked ink pot and quill laid untouched to the side, and her hands sat clasped in her lap politely. This was not the time for note-taking or storytelling.

"Master Julian is the bard who spread fair word of Geralt of Rivia, transforming him from a monster to a hero," Essi recapped, speaking of what she knew about modern mythology and the Continent's word of mouth. "They traveled on and off for twenty some years. Yennefer of Vengerberg is a mage who is bound to Geralt by fate, and any relationship they had is now dust and destiny. And you're both… _married?"_

"Not yet," Jaskier spoke.

"Yes," Yennefer said at the same time.

"We'll be married soon, but we haven't _yet,"_ Jaskier clarified, ignoring the panic rearing in his chest because they hadn't even _talked_ about this yet, for Melitele's sake. _Why_ were his hands suddenly clammy? Damn this woman. "I won't bar you from writing this ballad, Priscilla, because there isn't a gorgeous ballad I _wouldn't_ want written about Yennefer, but I _would_ like to hear it before it's performed."

"Of course, Sir," Essi relented, and she made a curious expression. "Would you… like to hear it now?"

"Let him read the score, darling," Yen said, gesturing to the song book. "I think _hearing_ it right now might be a bit much. Another time, perhaps, but he can read the score for the moment."

The page Essi flipped to was titled _The Wolven Storm,_ which wasn't so upsetting as it was expected. As Jaskier read on, he came to realize it was written for a lone voice and lute, and it was written in Geralt's perspective. He vaguely hummed through the chorus, and the verses were well-written and slightly elusive, the perfect prose for something about Yennefer.

"This is… brilliant, actually," he said, rubbing his face. His stubble was starting to grow in. _Ugh._ "Except, I _know_ Geralt personally, and I don't think half these words are in his vocabulary. No, see, _that_ consists of grunts, hums, and the word _fuck,_ though I'd appreciate if you not told the other students that I said that in front of you, my dear Priscilla."

Essi grinned. "Thank you, Master Julian." She stood, gathering her things. "I must be off, now; I've got a performance to make. Tidings, Miss Yennefer, and to you as well, Master Julian!"

With Essi gone, Yennefer turned to Jaskier expectantly, as though waiting for him to say something, perfect eyebrows raised high.

 _"You flee my dream come the morning,"_ Jaskier sang raptly as she stared into him with vivid violet eyes which softened at the tune. _"Your scent—berries tart, lilac sweet. To dream of raven locks entwisted, stormy. Of violet eyes, glistening as you weep…"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed!! kudos and comments are my favorite, come see me on tumblr @/spaacey-ace2022. see you guys next week!


	7. I'm no longer filled with wonder (how wrong you were)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring has arrived! Ciri and Geralt leave the keep with little fanfare. Jaskier and Yennefer are invited to the Academy's annual Imbolc Feast. Ciri learns more and more about her new caretaker as they stray further from Kaer Morhen, and better yet, she's having dreams again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for nightmares and mentions of ep. 6 (geralt has a nightmare and it's only briefly mentioned, not in depth) and a slight sexual scene at the end of Jask and Yen's bit.
> 
> Enjoy!

Spring came in a rush of slush and cold rains, and Geralt set off with Cirilla on the first day of it.

It wasn't a huge affair. Cirilla received quiet embraces from each of the witchers, strapped her saddlebags onto Buttercup, and rode off with Geralt, toward Kaedwen and then beyond. The forests were cool and slushy, but the Lion Cub of Cintra was no longer the frostbitten child Geralt had met outside of Sodden. She was growing into muscle mass and keen senses, and the sheaths at her hip, while filled for now with hand-me-down swords and knives, looked right.

She was… _promising._

The first time Geralt really saw his Child Surprise weather a nightmare was a particularly chill evening. She laid on the bedroll that'd once been Jaskier's, and Geralt was reminiscing—Ostara was, after all, _soon,_ which would push the closest friend he'd ever had closer toward death, even if Jaskier never realized he'd known this particular bit of knowledge—when he heard it. Cirilla was muttering in her slumber, her fists curling, and Geralt had just enough time to shuffle to the other side of the fire before she woke with a gasp and a cry.

"Breathe, Cirilla," he instructed, offering a hand. The girl gripped it and pulled herself up, keeping a hardy grip on his forearm. Her gaze flitted about, her long hair coming free from her twin sleeping braids. When her eyes finally stopped on him, they were empty and unseeing. "What's the matter? What do you—?"

"Where's Dara?" she asked, voice tremulous and breaking like a storm.

Geralt did not know anyone called Dara, or what even to respond, so he deigned not to. Cirilla only grew more hysterical, sobbing in his arms, crying out for this Dara character, and then she calmed, and he was left holding onto a scared little girl. She burrowed into his chest like she had that first day, briefly, before pulling away and rubbing her eyes dry.

"Who's Dara?" Geralt grunted, though he kept his voice soft and calm.

Cirilla sniffed, glancing up at him through dark, tear-clumped lashes but mostly avoiding his gaze. "He's an elf I befriended before I found you," she murmured. "He and I split apart when he learned I was the princess of Cintra. He was… _scared_ of me, I think. Angry. A _lot_ of people were angry at me."

Geralt knew how that went. He adjusted his position—cross-legged instead of kneeling—and settled next to the girl's bedroll. "A witcher's training," he began, unsure in these waters, how to explain to this to someone so young, so tender, "teaches one how to be resolute in their beliefs and sure in their skill. And, though you're Cintran royalty by blood, you're a witcher by right, and that makes you different from your ancestors." After a pause, he breathed out, "You can _be different_ from your ancestors, Cirilla."

Cirilla stared at the ground for a long while, uprooting grass and staining her palms from the chlorophyll. "Does it make me kind?" she said, muted, shivering with some emotion Geralt didn't know how to name.

"Only you can decide whether you're kind," he assured, pressing a hand to her shoulder. Her back was tense, her whole body coiled like a spring. "But you should never let their words define you, Cirilla. If there's anything that life has taught me, it's that others cannot mold you unless you let them."

Silence. "It's Ciri," she corrected, looking up. A stillness came to her, then, and she calmed fully, finally. Her shoulders dropped. She shuffled idly, and then she was laying on her bedroll with her head on Geralt's thigh.

Geralt listened to her heartbeat slow, to her breaths even, and he stayed very still all the while, though he couldn't help but give in to the occasional urge to pet her pale blonde hair and smile.

~*~

The Academy's whole administration was having an Imbolc feast at the headmaster's manor.

Jaskier had known about this feast since his own time as a student, many years past. A handful of courtly students got chosen each year to join in on the festivities, and he'd gone once as Master Francis's star pupil, but now he was _obligated_ to go. Invited as an equal, not as an underling. And the headmaster wasn't the same one as when he'd been a student, obviously; that had been over twenty years ago, now, before his life had begun.

And he had a specification for a plus one.

That was only something married professors got. Jaskier wasn't married yet. Had he mentioned Yennefer to administration? He knew he'd not spoken to Francis about it, nor any of his students, though Essi—

 _Essi._ Cheeky young lady. Jaskier would have to have a word with her, though he couldn't complain. Yennefer would've wanted to come regardless of the plus one option, and he'd no doubt she would've spontaneously regained the ability to control Chaos to make it so had he _not_ had it.

"What's that face?" the sorceress called. She was seasoning tonight's dinner with the best-tasting herbs from her garden, and Jaskier thought he loved her like this: long sleeves rolled to her elbows, a messy apron tied around her skirts, feet bare of slippers and stockings, hair braided back casually.

"We're invited to the annual Imbolc feast for the Academy's scholars," he informed her. She paused, a frown adorning her fine features, and Jaskier sat up accordingly so she could properly address him.

"What do you mean, _we?"_ she said, laughing nervously. "You mean _you're_ invited to it."

"No," he said simply. "I mean _we._ Courtesy here in Oxenfurt extends an invitation to a scholar _and_ his or her spouse, and I believe Essi might've had a say in this particular invite."

Yennefer made a face: scrunched nose, eyebrows drawn, lips pursed. Jaskier couldn't help the chuckle he let out.

"You don't _have_ to come if you don't want to, love," he said, grinning when Yen gave him a look.

"No, I want to," she argued faintly, slowly moving back into the motions of preparing dinner. Jaskier would have to start on cutting up red potatoes and onions so those would be finished by the time the fish had done roasting. The bread was in the oven as of not long ago, and it was not even beginning to rise, so he had time yet.

"We'll need to get an appropriate gown, then." He gathered up the day's mail, shuffling it into appropriate put-away and keep-on-the-table piles, then made to stand and go to the sorceress. "Do you prefer to wear slippers when attending something like that, or—?"

"Heeled boots," Yen countered immediately, eyebrows raising speculatively. "I don't need that many people knowing how tall I _actually_ am compared to you. I don't think even _Geralt_ knows that."

The laughter that came surging up was unexpected but nonetheless welcome. When he'd stopped feeling so heartbroken at the mention of Geralt's name was beyond him, but Jaskier wasn't complaining. He figured maybe it was around the time Yennefer started leaning to catch the kisses on her lips instead of her cheeks.

"We can go into the market tomorrow, find a nice tailor and shoemaker," he suggested. He glued himself dramatically onto Yennefer's back, wrapping arms around her waist, kissing up her neck until his lips tickled the shell of her ear. "Oh, _darling,_ I'd love to see you draped in the most expensive finery money can buy…"

Yennefer turned to meet his gaze over her own shoulder, smirking, and when she turned about in his arms to press a kiss to his lips, Jaskier's heart fluttered valiantly in his chest. They held fast to each other for a long while, slow and sensual, before Jaskier realized with a jolt that they were supposed to be _preparing supper_ and not sweetening each other up before bed.

He pulled away, and Yennefer smiled coyly at him but let him go, and they worked side by side at the wooden kitchen counter, to prepare the evening meal. Dinner that night was delicious and the heated glances they exchanged often over their dishes were especially delectable. Yennefer’s lips and tongue were a whole new _world_ of foreplay as Jaskier practically drooled at her, but he contained himself for later.

Jaskier, far later that night, in fact, remarked on the subject of how the only howling creatures he'd encountered in his life had been wolves and women, and that maybe he'd write Yennefer a private song, to which the sorceress replied that _this_ was her private song: Jaskier's large, four-poster bed covered in furs, his humble home, and the nights every once in a while he spent between her legs.

~*~

In the true light of spring, Geralt didn't seem so intimidating.

He talked to his horse, for one, often about trivial things, sometimes just about what the day ahead would hold. Ciri thought it irrelevant at first, though she learned to listen when her guardian had these long talks with Roach. It sort of… unburdened his conscious, she supposed, and helped him work through his feelings about the day's events at his own pace.

He _also_ picked her flowers. Not often, given, but Ciri started to notice a pattern. If Geralt thought she was upset, or saw she was sad or that something had gotten to her, he'd give her head a gentle pet, be off for a few moments, and then return with wildflowers in bloom. Ciri pressed the prettier ones into a notebook he'd picked up for her in Kaedwen, and weaved the ones she didn't press and keep into her hair or into Buttercup and Roach’s manes.

And Geralt had nightmares too.

Ciri wasn't supposed to know this. Uncle Vesemir had spoken to her about it, told her to beware of a witcher's unrest, but she'd not known what to make of it then. Now, as she laid awake, turned away from the White Wolf, she knew.

Geralt, flushed awake with the heat of panic, the huff of fast, terrified breaths. Calling out, silently, for _Yennefer._ Calling out for someone Ciri did _not_ yet know: _Come back, Yen, I'm sorry. Please, Jask, I never meant it._

He had nightmares of loss and wanted for his Yennefer and whoever this _Jask_ was, and Ciri felt like she knew some dirty secret that she wasn't supposed to have access to just yet. Like she'd seen something she was not supposed to see.

She'd known Geralt and Yennefer had parted ways just the summer prior, nearly a year ago now, but she'd not known they'd parted on bad enough terms for him to feel the need to apologize. Had he parted ways with this Jask person the same day Yennefer had left him? Had he said something he shouldn't have?

There was no way to know, really, not unless she wanted to admit to Geralt that she'd been listening in on his nightmares.

That night, she dreamed she stood in a house—a _cottage,_ really—lit by open windows. The ocean breeze felt so real, the salt-smell stinging in her nose, and Ciri could've stood at the kitchen counter forever just breathing it in. The scent of sweet-smelling herbs and flowers perfumed the house, and a thin, lean arm wrapped around her shoulders.

For some reason, it calmed Ciri further. The beautiful woman beside her with her gleaming violet eyes smiled, kind, and her dark hair fell in rivulets around her face, the single stripe of white running through it giving her some sort of… _realness,_ like maybe she'd have only existed as a character in this dream otherwise. Her dark skin looked a fine contrast from Ciri's, and the woman tucked her up to her side cozily.

"Enjoying the view, are we?" she asked sweetly, voice a high, dwindling note in the air, and Ciri didn't recognize her accent. The woman planted a kiss on the crown of her head. "He should be back soon with the treat he promised you. Go lay back down in the den."

Ciri's vision was slightly hazy around the edges, but that didn't stop her from seeing the scars, now: small, blotchy pink scars running from the woman's fingertips up under the sleeves of her casual day-dress, and the ugly, prominent lines on her wrists, two each, four total. They didn’t take away from the woman’s beauty; in fact, they might have made her _more_ beautiful. She let herself be lead out of the kitchen and into the den. The hearth was blazing warm, and the lounge was covered in a nest of furs and quilts.

Ciri dropped into it under the woman's gentle guidance, relishing in the feeling of being surrounded by warmth and soft things. The woman brushed a stray lock of hair back, pressing a cool palm to Ciri's forehead, and a brief look of worry flashed across her face before the door opened, and she looked up expectantly and—

And Ciri woke up, and the pleasant fogginess of sleep turned into sleep-addled grumpiness as Geralt began taking her through the morning routine they'd set up.

"There's a village less than a half-day's ride from here," he grunted, eyes underlined by the telling darkness of a previous night's horrors. "They've a simple drowner problem which I'll contract to solve, and then we'll ride to the next place which promises coin."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's late in the day but I had a lot of running around to do today since it's my brother's birthday! This chapter marks seven weeks since I began posting, at least (it's been nine or ten since I started writing... crazy). I hope everyone is well, and kudos and comments are highly appreciated.
> 
> come find me on tumblr at @spaacey-ace2022 and I'll see you all next week!


	8. sing me awake with a song about pirates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Imbolc Feast has arrived! Jaskier and Yennefer have a wonderful time among the bard-turned-professor's peers.
> 
> There is talk of dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No TW except brief descriptions of a dream Yen has toward the end. Enjoy!

The manor was made up with lamps and colorful banners. The enormous dining hall had been fixed with a large enough set of long tables to accommodate everyone, including spouses and student guests, and though the meal was yet to be set out, the aroma of tonight's coming feast could be smelled from the door.

Yennefer was nervous. Jaskier _knew_ Yennefer was nervous, however good she was at hiding these sorts of things. She gripped his offered elbow tightly, and her hair had been an issue all on its own when they'd been getting prepared for the evening—was it better to have it up and away from her face? should she try to hide the white streak? what was appropriate for engaged couples in Oxenfurt anyway?—though the true tell had been the way her toe had tapped on the carriage ride over: quickly, anxiously, a staccato of surly fear.

Yennefer's first real time at a public gathering where she could be _herself._

So, she was nervous. Jaskier had gotten the message, loud and clear, the moment she'd begun fussing about her white streak in the mirror. And now, as their arrivals were announced and they stepped into the dining hall to mingle, he felt her tense. He moved his arm, dislodging her hand from his elbow, and wrapped it around her waist instead, sitting comfortably at her lower back, hand gingerly cupping her hip.

"What're you doing?" she hissed, eyes wide as they continued to walk toward the large, empty plot of floor space set near a low-sitting stage.

Essi beamed from the stage, wearing her colorful performer's clothes. She waved, tinkling fingers and elegant swaying. Then, her hand went back to the lute she held and she continued to play, a jaunty entertaining tune, the band behind her following her lead. All students. Jaskier recalled when _he'd_ been the lute-player up on a stage like that, singing gaudy songs he'd only get away with just this once, though that was a story he could recount later.

"Taking you to dance," he informed his fiancée—because that's what she _was:_ his fiancée—as he walked her onto the plot of floor. "That's what you do at an event like this, yeah? Dance. I've heard Aedirnians are _fantastic_ dancers. Would you like to show me, love?"

He put a challenging look on his face and Yennefer responded in kind. They fell into each other's grips with ease, two opponents facing off, laughing at big spins and tiny twirls. His enchantress never misstepped, never fell out of rhythm, and moved into the next dance with a leisurely grace. Each time the songs changed, sped up or slowed down, rose and fell in time, Yen was there, dancing with him gladly, smiling like a cat who'd gotten the canary, however ironic that was.

When the headmaster called the scholars to dine, Jaskier was half out of breath and Yennefer, not missing a beat, took him by the arm and lead him to the table with a new-found confidence. He thought back to the first morning she woke up conscious, when she'd wandered out to find that awkward man in ill-fitting robes. Those two were gone as he sat straight-backed at the table with her, Master Francis on his open side and Essi on hers.

The main course was soon brought out by more students—the ones studying in the culinary arts, chosen through a fine comb to get this job—and three religious scholars stood to bless the meal before they really got into it. It was a very well thought out meal, cooked to extravagantly-planned perfection, and each course seemed to be better than the last. Each scholar in turn shared stories of familiar life at home or tales of grand joke-wars between themselves and a group of students.

As dessert was being finished, the headmaster turned to Jaskier and said, "Tell us, Master Julian, what of your accounts?"

Jaskier paused with a spoon halfway to his mouth, befuddled. "What _of_ my accounts?" he asked back, and Yennefer leaned forward to put her chin into her hand direly. He nudged her with his knee under the table.

"Your adventures, Young Julian!" Master Francis said, spreading his arms in a gesture of grandeur. "A bard's stories of adventure and awe, perhaps, or…" A teasing note came to his voice. "You could tell us how you met and enraptured a lady so enchanting as yours."

"Oh, I could _hardly_ call Yennefer _mine,"_ he scoffed, turning briefly to catch her sweet gaze as she raised an eyebrow. "She belongs to nobody. I think, perhaps, I'm _hers."_

The scholars went up in light laughter and cooing over the sweet couple. When it died down, Jaskier could not deny the flush to his face wasn't from the wine, no matter _how_ good it was.

"How _did_ you meet your love, then?" the headmaster asked.

"Boring story, really," he waved off, gathering another bite of the pudding. "I can barely recall half of it, and it's not an affair I'd tell even in confidence."

Yennefer scoffed, rolling her eyes. "The witcher found a djinn in a bottle, the bard got cursed, and they came to me for help," she spoke up, and Jaskier turned to her, making an innocent face as he took the spoonful of pudding into his mouth. "His throat was injured badly; he wouldn't have had a voice if he'd survived, which he _wouldn't_ have, had I not been there. I cured him completely, made a mess of his witcher, and then they went on their merry way before long."

"Where's Geralt of Rivia now?" a curious professor asked, and Jaskier snorted.

"Last I heard, being an arse," he muttered. Yennefer elbowed him. Louder, he said, "I don't know of his current whereabouts, pray he's not near here, though he should've already been to Kaer Morhen." He held up one stout, mocking finger and said conspiratorially, "Did you know, the witchers winter there."

The scholars chattered excitedly among themselves: _Kaer Morhen? How many witchers stayed there? What did they do there? Why would they go back, every winter?_

Yennefer gave him a strange look. "I didn't know the witchers stayed at Kaer Morhen in the winter," she hummed to him.

"Geralt's mentor stays year-round," he replied, quiet. "Never beat a name out of him, the stubborn arse, but there's usually two other travelling witchers beside him. Mentioned a third, once, but I didn't get much out of him about that one, either."

"Huh," Yen said, putting her chin back in her hand. She looked at him, sidelong. "You think we'll ever meet them?"

"The two other ones?" He snorted, taking another bite of pudding. "Highly doubt it. They'd maybe run me through on sight, if they knew what was good for them."

"They'd have to go through me first," the sorceress growled, fixing her posture as though preparing for battle.

"Hypothetically," Jaskier remarked, singsong, and turned to the headmaster. "Did you know, young Priscilla here wrote a song about Yennefer and Geralt?"

"Did she?" the headmaster asked, leaning forward in interest. "I mean no offense to ask, Lady Yennefer, but you and the witcher had… relations?"

"Oh, yes," Yen answered, nodding once. She smiled. "No offense taken, Headmaster. We broke it off bitterly, though I'd been close to forgiving him before I learned what he'd made of my darling here."

More whispers. Jaskier smirked at the attention.

"Well, I, for one, would like to hear Lady Priscilla's composition," Master Francis said from beside him.

"It _is_ a gorgeous piece," Yen added.

Jaskier nodded solemnly. "Extremely well written. It may have been bias on the subjects, but my dear Priscilla got the highest marks on her project."

Essi grinned, doffing her hat bemusedly to hide her laughter. She'd already begun gathering her lute and tuning when the headmaster asked her to go to the stage to perform.

She got up, hopping onto the stage with light, easy footsteps, and sat upon the old wooden stool there. She plucked out a mournful, harmonizing melody, and the scholars watched on, enraptured at the young lady's sweet voice. At the chorus, she sent Jaskier a doleful glance, and he joined her in harmony, standing from the table to lead Yennefer to the stage. She sat stubbornly on the edge of the stage as he stood beside Essi, his hands clasped politely behind his back as he hummed along with an adjoining but contrasted melody.

At the end, the administration cheered. All the ladies swooned at Essi's poetics and melodic charm, and Jaskier caught more than a few tears being wiped away.

Jaskier, too, clapped for his student, until she turned toward him and offered up her lute with an expectant look. Yennefer glanced back in time to catch the commotion, but at that point, the headmaster and Master Francis had _both_ caught him trying to turn away the offer.

"Oh, you're _kidding,"_ Yen said, amusement flashing in her smirk as she stood. "You're _ridiculous,_ darling. You've got a literal book _full_ of songs that are fully finished, and you've yet to perform them."

"They're for _later,"_ he groaned, and he _knew_ he was whining, but _really_.

"When's later?" the sorceress shot back.

He had no answer. Yennefer stood, took the lute, and deposited it safely into his arms. Jaskier began tuning it idly, making chatter with Essi as he did, gathering his thoughts. What song would he sing? Not _Her Sweet Kiss;_ while a gorgeous composition on his part, that would put bad impressions into the minds of his peers. _Toss A Coin_ was overrated by now. He couldn't do _Justice for the Lion Cub_ because that required a full band and the Lion Cub of Cintra's presence.

He turned to Yennefer. "What song should I—?"

 _"The Wedding Song,"_ his fiancée answered, charmed, a light shining in her eyes. His heart stuttered in his chest at the implications, because while his fiancée knew the song, Yen didn't yet know that his _actual wedding vows_ were written into it. "I can play the drumming rhythm, you know."

"Yes, I know," Jaskier hissed, surely flushed red to his hairline now, swatting at Yennefer's hand. "Ready?"

"Ready, oh darling mine," Yennefer confirmed settling back behind the drums, and Jaskier began strumming a happy, bright tune.

He knew there was _something,_ bright and golden in his last years of youth, _The Wedding Song_ was frankly missing, though he'd have time, yet, to work on it. He'd have time to figure out how to put it together.

All Jaskier needed was Yennefer and music, light and love equal in turn.

_(But, oh, he wanted something more.)_

~*~

"I keep having these dreams," Yen said quietly.

"Oh?" Jaskier turned to face her in their bed eagerly.

"It starts with Geralt in the woods," the sorceress described, also turning to face him. "It's always just before sunrise. Very dark. There's the sound of approaching soldiers, and then there's a child running away. She gets on a horse, and I don't know whether it's Roach or another horse, it's just _a horse,_ but she goes, and Geralt draws his swords. He looks scared in them, and so does she, but then I see her in the den, sleeping peacefully. In _our_ den."

Jaskier considered this for a long moment, letting his mind soak it up. "Might be that his Child Surprise is in trouble," he murmured, and he couldn't help the fear gripping his lungs. "Or, no. She's safe by the end of the dream, isn't she? _Geralt_ could be in trouble."

Yennefer stared on at him in the dark. "Except it doesn't _feel_ like he is, does it?" she whispered. "There's _impending_ doom but it's not here _yet._ Like he _will_ be in trouble, soon, but we won't know that until we have the Child Surprise with us, safe."

Jaskier pressed his lips together and scooted closer. Yen met him in the middle, tucking close against his chest. He said nothing else, and neither did she. The bed seemed a little colder, tonight, just that little bit more… _empty._ Like something—or some _one—_ was missing. _Absent._ There was something gone from here, like Jaskier had seen a painting once, a decade ago, and came back today to realize it'd been changed, just slightly. Pushed to the left. Tilted awkwardly but being unable to fix it.

He let Yennefer's heartbeat lull him to sleep as his did her, and in the dark recesses of sleep, his mind came to life with words and songs and poetry.

And there, in the back of his subconscious, the unease began to grow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this installment! As always, comments and kudos are highly appreciated, and you can find me on tumblr at @spaacey-ace2022
> 
> see you next week!


	9. toss a coin to your

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt goes to the Golden Palaces to see an old friend or two. Ciri's pursuers haunt her all the way to Dol Blathanna.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for illness, slight magical violence, and sad :(

Geralt got a summons from the elves at the Edge of the World in Ban Ard, which is how he ended up riding through Dol Blathanna to Posada.

The place was a ghost town, a reminiscent shadow of the place Geralt had first met a young, fresh-faced bard, ten years carrying the title of _Butcher_ about to change forever. Geralt and Ciri lead their respective steeds around the anti-gravity structures, mindful of how they went, and then the witcher took the horses to be stabled.

This tavern. Geralt wandered inside, mindful of the girl following, brushing fingers through the dust at the table he'd sat at so long ago. Twenty summers past, he reminded himself, and a small smile flickered onto his face as he pictured it: himself, back at this very seat, Jaskier performing bawdy bar tunes at the stage he'd been booed off not long earlier, singing a false song about the White Wolf.

"You've been here before," Ciri said quietly, not a question, not _really._

"Twenty years ago," Geralt confirmed. "To fend off a devil. The devil turned out to be a sylvan, and the sylvan was helping the elves at the Edge of the World which contacted me."

"…Why is the town empty?"

"The humans here were on elven land, sitting on Elder blood," he explained patiently. "The elves were sick. Starving, dying, watching the humans that massacred them feed off the lands fertilized by their own blood. The humans pushed them out, and they could take no more, so they pushed back."

Ciri hummed, nodding. She looked… _melancholy._ She skimmed petite fingers across the walls, the bar. "Do you think they'll hate me?"

"Why would we hate someone we've not yet met?" a voice asked from the doorway.

Geralt and Ciri both turned. Filavandrel stood in the doorway, flanked by Toruviel and another, golden-haired elf. He looked better than he had twenty years prior, his clothes properly-made instead of handed down and hastily mended. His hair was down his back now, long by his culture and not shortened by another's.

"Geralt of Rivia," Filavandrel greeted, mirth shining in his eyes as he and his entourage entered. "It's wonderful to see you again, and especially on such terms. You know, I chance it to ask: did you have any say in your bard's song about us?"

"No," Geralt answered, clasping hands with the King of the Elves. "Though I'd pardon him. He was young and stupid, back then, and the Continent has known the truth near thirteen years, now. I know he's revised it, though, for the sake of your peace of mind."

"Ah, good." Filavandrel nodded, then turned his attention back to Ciri. He bowed slightly. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, young lady, though I still haven't the slightest as to why we might hate you. I am Filavandrel of the Golden Palaces."

He passed off the title with an excited smile and a quick wink in Geralt's direction, though the witcher was having trouble breathing. He felt as though his ribcage was collapsing, folding the feeling tighter and tighter until it was a concentrated ball of _something_ that Geralt could neither get rid of nor identify. Maybe he missed Jaskier a little bit. Maybe that was the case. Nothing more.

(He missed Jaskier a lot. Jaskier, he reasoned with himself, did not miss him back.)

"I'm Ciri," the girl introduced back, plain, lips pressed close together, wobbling. "Geralt's Child Surprise. Uh. Witcher in training…?"

Geralt nodded reassuringly at her and she let out the breath she'd been holding. Filavandrel glanced at him then back again, squinting. Realization overtook his features.

"Lady Ciri," he began, slow, "you're _surrounded_ by Chaos. Absolutely _smothered_ in it. Toruviel, Kasmira, do you see?"

The two woman took a closer look. Ciri shied behind Geralt. He held up a hand and all three elves stepped off, looking up at him to determine what was happening.

"We know about her connection to Chaos," he rumbled. "Though I came because I thought you had something you needed assistance with, Filavandrel."

Filavandrel nodded solemnly. "Yes, of course," he said, voice grim. "Much happened at the beginning of the winter. There was a great shift in the Chaos caused by the human mages. They were tampering with magic much older, much more powerful than themselves. There were many from the south working in the type of magic only elves can perform without dying, killing themselves off, dropping like _flies._ It followed them north, and there was a battle. You may have heard of it, the Battle of Sodden Hill, we had elves spying."

Ciri made a noise beside him. Geralt squeezed her shoulder and nodded, waiting for Filavandrel to continue.

"There was a group of mages from Aretuza that held fort against the Nilfgaardians," the Elf King informed him gravely. "Not many, mostly sorceresses, but the pull against Chaos was enough for us elves to pinpoint and capture the mages responsible. That is, the mages who hadn't been slaughtered in cold blood. The few still alive from Aretuza were very sick, though we couldn't in good judgement let them suffer. Toruviel here _still_ thinks I should've let them die."

Toruviel huffed, crossing her arms and baring her teeth in a growl.

"But one case I found interesting," Filavandrel said, hesitant, looking a bit frightened, "was that one of the mages… _resisted_ capture. I could sense her on the other side. She was… a _master_ of Chaos. I've only seen my fellow elves be able to control Chaos like she had. But I made a portal, and she made one too, and she _fought,_ in that space between places, and I held her in suspension for an _hour_ before she closed my portal and escaped."

Something in there sounded a bit _too_ familiar, but Geralt ignored the thrumming in his chest. The voice in his head that sounded too close to Yennefer for comfort jived at him. Ciri gripped his hand, looking a bit spooked as she looked toward him.

"We were near Sodden during the battle," she said. "When he found me. I remember that night that the sky turned red. I could hardly sleep. I had a dream that night, of a woman calling for—"

"No," Geralt said, stern, fumbling for some reason why _not._ "We're not going to speak of her, Ciri, it only leads to trouble."

While Filavandrel puzzled at him, Toruviel glared at him, scrutinizing. Her mouth turned up in a pale impression of a smile, sharp and predatory.

"Where _is_ your bard, by the by?" she asked. She had a delighted look in her eyes, a glimmer of _mean,_ there. "What was his name, again? It meant something in another language, once, didn't it? Dandelions. Buttercups, I think, _oh,_ that’s it, _Jask—"_

 _"Stop,"_ Geralt barked. Ciri jolted beside him, staring with wide green eyes. Filavandrel seemed a bit curious, if still a little frightened.

"One of the sorceresses was asking after you, specifically," the King of the Elves said, finally. He turned to the blonde woman at his shoulder, made a few gestures which the woman returned with a nod, and then addressed Geralt and Ciri. "Let's go visit her, shall we? Then, perhaps, you'll both stay for dinner."

~*~

The Golden Palaces at the Edge of the World were not palaces; they were hovels dug out of the side of the Blue Mountains that faced away from what was once human civilization, accessible only through a pass the elves had hidden beneath a glamour. The place was swimming with elves of all shapes and sizes and colors, excited playing children and murmuring teenagers and working adults. A city like her home once was: bustling, moving, _alive._

Ciri stuck close to Geralt, and Buttercup and Roach trotted slow beside each other. That name had returned: _Jask._ It was a nickname, she'd learned, the first syllable of a name which held so much power of the White Wolf. Like Yennefer's, she suspected. Someone he loved who he'd wronged.

It wasn't long before Filavandrel lead them to a stable and they were on their feet, their respective horses munching away at oats and hay without a care.

The elves stared as they passed. Some of the children laughed and tried to approach, though they were fended off by Geralt's hearty glare. Filavandrel greeted his people with joyous smiles and wide-open arms, happily making conversation with the citizens of his— his _kingdom._ Ciri was witnessing a king, a _kind_ king, a _good_ king, in his element, among his people.

Ciri admired him from afar, and hoped one day she might be like this.

As Filavandrel lead the troupe, the two elven women—Toruviel and Kasmira—fell back to flank Ciri. Kasmira, the blonde one, made a few hand-gestures that Ciri only vaguely realized was sign-language when Toruviel replied in kind.

"So why _would_ we hate you, then?" Toruviel asked once she’d had sufficient conversation with the blonde.

Ciri jolted at the question. "I'm… not at will to tell you that," she answered, pulling at her bracers anxiously. "But I've no doubt I've already made a better impression than most, erm… _humans_ you've met. Even disregarding the, ah, Chaos I'm surrounded by."

Toruviel opened her mouth to speak but paused when Kasmira waved. The blonde's hands moved in a flurry and Toruviel hummed decisively, said something in Elderspeech, and then turned back to address Ciri.

"Kasmira is one of the best Chaos-wielders among us," the woman explained . "She says the Chaos around _you,_ specifically, is much different than regular Chaos. Different than the Chaos surrounding everything in the world." She watched Kasmira for a moment, marking down her words. "It's very _old_ Chaos. Like it's been passed down but not watered down by the generations past. It can create or destroy at your will, she says, but it's sort of like a beast heeling at your feet that you haven't quite tamed yet."

That was the most Ciri had been told of her powers since she'd learned of them. It made _sense,_ almost, but Ciri had only seen her Chaos destroy or incapacitate. She must've been making a face to express this, as Kasmira reached out with both hands expectantly. Ciri let her hands be taken, palms facing upward, watched in awe as the blonde mouthed a word in Elderspeech. A howling wolf appeared, shimmering and translucent, above Ciri's hands.

It tingled faintly when Kasmira took her hands away with a knowing smile, and they continued on toward where the captured mages were.

The cells were underground, and the elves lit the way, summoning fire into their palms with the scattered sounds of something coming alight very suddenly: _fwoom!_ Ciri was in wonder, but Geralt didn't seem very surprised at all. They marched on, deeper into the makeshift dungeon.

A woman, dark-skinned, hair cropped short, was staring at her with very menacing eyes. Ciri stopped short in front of the cell and Kasmira stopped beside her, illuminating the raggedly-cloaked mage.

"The White Flame calls you, still," the mage rasped.

A shudder ran through Ciri so deeply, it made her braced hands tremble. Her knees turned to jelly in their sockets. Her ears rang, and her vision tunneled, and all she could feel was _battle_ and _burning_ and _screamingscreamingscreaming—_

Kasmira grabbed her forearm in one hand and made a gesture with the other. A flash of green light hovered over the elf's face before flashing brightly. The caged witch screeched, covering her face protectively. The others hurried to turn and see what had happened, and the next thing Ciri was aware of was being wrapped up in Geralt's arms. The witcher's golden gaze stuck to the mage cowering in her cell.

"Nilfgaard's?" he rumbled.

"Indeed," Filavandrel confirmed. "Her name is Fringilla. She is Nilfgaard's High Sorceress. She speaks of _rot._ Don't believe a single word she says, Lady Ciri. She lies."

Ciri was being lead away when Fringilla's voice rang out once more, cold and cruel and quivering: "Never imagined I'd see the day the King of the Elves worked with the Lion Cub of Cintra."

Toruviel spat into the cell, barked an order in Elderspeech, and continued marching beside them. "Cintra has fallen," she growled, and Ciri felt her heart skip a beat. "No survivors. See? A liar."

Geralt squeezed her shoulder, and they continued forward through the dark, the elves' magical fire lighting their way.

~*~

"King Filavandrel," a meek, sickly voice greeted as they neared the cell, though Geralt would know that voice anywhere, regardless of its state.

"Good afternoon, Miss Merigold," the King of the Elves answered, and the cell's door opened with a wave of his hand. "I brought you the visitor you requested."

Geralt took his cue to enter the cell, leaving Ciri in the hands of the elven women still out in the hall. Triss laid on a cot, looking… _ill._ Worse for ware, really, as though she'd fallen ill _months_ ago and had not yet fully recovered. The Battle of Sodden had taken a great toll on her, if he was not to be mistaken, and the way Filavandrel offered his kindness to her spoke of some clear underlying issue.

"Geralt of Rivia," Triss said, and her melancholy expression lifted. She held a hand out to him and he met her halfway, kneeling down beside her cot. "How pleasant of you to have come. It's been very long since you and I last spoke, hasn't it?"

"Nearing twelve or thirteen years, I should think," Geralt replied, keeping his grip light on Triss's weak hand.

"Just after you asked for payment in the Law of Surprise," the sorceress recounted, eyes alight as she observed where Ciri stood. "You've finally secured her, then. It's nice to meet you, child. I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances."

Ciri gave Triss a polite nod, courtly and still despite her shake-up mere moments ago. "Pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Miss Merigold."

Triss hummed, sated, a rasping sound, and it caught in her throat. She doubled into a coughing fit, and Geralt knew to do nothing but support her weight and pat her back. When she settled back down, she had that miserable, desperate expression back on her face, visibly upset by something.

"The King and I have spoken extensively regarding it," she managed, then gasped for breath, ragged, eyes full of tears as she gripped his arm. "The sorceress who evaded capture was Yennefer. You and I both know that, know how powerful she is. King Foltest found Tissaia and returned her to Aretuza, but Yennefer portalled… _somewhere._ If anything, we all thought she'd go to _you,_ but she _isn't_ with you, witcher, and—"

"Miss Merigold," Filavandrel said, half-chiding, as he laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Take a breath, dear friend. Calm."

Triss took a few trembling breaths, her weakened hand going slack on Geralt's arm. "I am dying, Geralt," she admitted, voice a whispered hum, and it struck him, somehow, right through the heart. "An ancient curse. Fringilla's underlings cast it on me and, though they've tried, the King's most prominent Chaos-wielders have not been able to undo it, nor have they been able to get any information about it out of that wretched wench."

Geralt looked to Filavandrel, seeking some inkling of truth, of _hope._ The King of the Elves bowed his head solemnly, pale hand squeezing Triss's other hand comfortingly.

"As far as we've been made aware, unless that which she loves the most returns her feelings, she will die a slow and painful death," Filavandrel said. Geralt's stomach dropped. "She asked me to call you here so she could at least pass peacefully in her own kingdom."

Geralt looked back at Triss, disregarding how painful it was to look at a cursed, dying distant friend of his. She moved her hand from his forearm to his shoulder, a hopeful look flitting across pained eyes.

"Please," she said, private. "I would like to go home to Temeria one last time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok guys!! I hope you enjoyed this installment, as always comments and kudos are MUCH appreciated. I'm sad to say I need a little bit to catch up on writing because I've fallen behind, so I will skip next week's update to give myself that extra time.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at @spaacey-ace2022, and I'll see you all in two more weeks!!


	10. threw their threads from their wedding bed (we'll talk about this tomorrow)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthdays and betrothals.

With the Vernal Equinox upon them, the celebrations of Ostara were afoot.

Jaskier honestly didn't know if he was scared or excited. All he knew was that lessons were in full swing, Yennefer's work as an herbalist was booming, and Elena had given birth to her babe, a bright little boy with hair dark as hers and a penchant for peaceful quiet. Yen had been ecstatic to be introduced, finally, to all of Jaskier's peers and old friends, and now that the baby was here, Elena made it a point to visit as often as she was able.

"The tavern is having a performance for Ostara this year, you know," Jaskier heard his friend say as he entered his home after a long day of lecturing. "A play to begin, and any children 'round can have an egg hunt, and the students at the Academy wanted to do songs. You might bring dear Julian, as well; he might enjoy celebrating his—"

"You're right, dear Elena, I _do_ love celebrating the height of spring," he interrupted, pausing to land a kiss firmly on Yennefer's lips as he passed through the den and into the kitchen. He grabbed a morsel of what had to have been earlier's lunch: a piece of unleavened bread with thick, crumbly cheese pressed and spread atop it. "All the children running about, all the music, all the bloody _pollen."_

Elena wheezed with laughter as he returned to the den, dipping down to bother Elena's younger daughter—more book smart than the elder even at age five, sure to get a full ride at the Academy—and ruffling the hair of the elder—sassier than her sister, often spotted being a menace to the city's local boys. The babe in his mother's arms cooed and Jaskier cooed back, making funny faces at him before sitting beside Yen on the loveseat.

"You're so good with children," his fiancée said, voice filled with wonder. "One of the— families I worked for once, the wife kept having little girls, no proper male heir to inherit the, er, _family business._ I was never very good with any of them."

"You've only worked with pampered families, though, haven't you?" Jaskier took a nibble off his snack, humming at the rich taste. "Lower class families are much easier to entertain, I've found, as someone who grew up in noble courts. No offense, girls."

"We're middle class," the five-year-old corrected, deadpan.

"I'd like to remind the room that I was a travelling bard of great renown," he announced loudly, "and there is not a single person on the Continent who doesn't know at least one of my songs."

"I don't know any of your songs," the eight-year-old bit back, a matter-of-fact tone in her voice.

Jaskier gawked at the pair of sisters. "Like hell, you don't! I performed in your mother's tavern for a _month!"_

The sisters exchanged a glance and then shrugged. Jaskier huffed in exasperation, feigning offense with a hand to his breast. Elena guffawed, as per her usual laugh, and rocked her baby when he began to fuss. Yennefer hid a slight look of envy in her hair as she watched Elena coo at her youngest child, and Jaskier deigned to give her the privacy of keeping the moment to herself, for now.

"Anyway, loves, I'd best be off," Elena said, making to stand. She exchanged a quick, companionable peck on the cheek with Yen and then another with Jaskier, her daughters collecting what small knickknacks they'd brought with. "Come visit sometime! And don't forget: the Ostara celebrations are open to all."

With that, she was away, and Jaskier lounged on his betrothed's lap, wriggling down into her soft stomach—something he'd not realized she'd possessed until recently, not that he'd been particularly _upset_ about it, no, quite the _opposite,_ actually—with a contented sigh. Yennefer laughed softly, brushing thin, elegant fingers through his floppy hair.

"You've got a lot of grey growing in here," Yen pointed out, voice gentle. She tugged at the soft strands and Jaskier groaned from the pressure. He wished he'd slowed down on his snack, now, instead of scarfing it down in two bites; it would've been _Heaven_ to have something savory right at this moment. "Getting old, _Julian?"_

Jaskier sat up suddenly enough to spook Yennefer. "No!" he said hastily, hands fluttering anxiously. _"No,_ I am _not_ getting old, and I can prove it because I can still take a full day's hike and play a full set of music at the end of the day."

Yennefer stared blankly at him, one unimpressed and perfectly molded brow quirking indifferently. "When's the last time you did that?"

He slumped back into the sorceress's lap, groaning with enough theatrics to shake a smile and a flurry of giggles from Yennefer's stone cold foundation. "I'll admit, it's been a while. But!" He sat up again, the index finger of one hand raised pointedly. "But I'm _not_ getting old. I may not have the refractory period of my youth, and _perhaps_ my hair is going a bit grey, but _you_ are technically still a cradle-robber, my dear."

This broke a full laugh out of Yennefer which, in turn, had Jaskier buckling into his own fit. They laid like that, one on top of another, on the loveseat for gods-knew-how-long before Jaskier finally decided to peel himself away—with a great protest from his fiancée and a myriad of kisses all over his face—and begin a light dinner. He was thinking a picnic, though he'd have to play his cards right if he was to prepare that before sundown.

He took up a handful of fruits and vegetables, brought them to the side of the counter they used to chop things up, and took up a knife to cut up the food.

 _Maybe,_ he thought, heart beating a rapid staccato, _I can properly ask her hand one of these days._

Funny, that. He and Yen had discussed it, they were each other's betrothed, but he'd never made it _official._ His students knew what the situation was, the Academy's administration knew about it, all his personal friends and past peers knew. All they had to do was get _married._ The joining-together of two beings previously seen as separate in the eyes of the gods. The start of a new chapter, or maybe the end of one. Approaching a new sphere of the universe that had yet to converge.

A sharp spark of pain bloomed in his fingertip. He was _bleeding._

"Och, _damn,"_ he cursed, grabbing the nearest rag to stem the flow. "Yen, I fucked up!"

"Did you?" came the too-casual reply from the den where Yennefer still lazed. "How so, darling?"

"My finger's bleeding!" he called, urging her to get up and come fix it.

True to form, Yen let out the heaviest sigh she could muster and lurched up from the loveseat to come check the flesh wound. She had him wash it off with water to reveal a small, insignificant nick just beneath his fingernail.

"But it _hurts,"_ he whined when the sorceress raised her sculpted, unimpressed brow at him for the second time in an hour.

"I'll put a poultice on it and wrap a _very small amount_ of gauze around your finger, Jaskier," she relented, tapping one cheek and kissing the other before she went off to do just that. When she returned, Jaskier still stood in wait for her, gaze having wandered to the window overlooking Yennefer's now very full garden, and blood leaked from where he covered the cut.

 _Interesting,_ the sorceress thought. _I wonder what's caught his attention._

Yennefer spread a fingertip's worth of healing poultice over the small nick before she wrapped the affected area, and Jaskier jolted back to reality when the sensation of her hands on his made it all the way into his mind.

"What's outside which has your attention so fraught?" Yen asked, bringing the wound—be it _barely_ that—to her lips to give it a small, chaste kiss.

"Wh—" Jaskier blinked hard, clearing his head of cobwebs. "Um. Just wondering about— Well. Geralt, I suppose."

"Hm," Yen said, taking up the knife Jaskier had been using and picking up where he left off in preparing dinner. "What about Geralt? As far as I'm concerned, the oaf doesn't deserve our time so long as he does not relinquish a sincere apology."

The concern behind her words gave Jaskier pause. "Not that," he said, moving to take down a few more light but hearty treats from his pantry and lay them out on the counter. He had one good, lidded basket somewhere in the cupboards beneath the counter, but he'd rather keep it secret until they made to leave. "Cut another one of those potatoes and leave them for me. I'm talking about how the princess is coping with living with Geralt."

At this point, both he and Yen knew as a fact that Cirilla had, indeed, found Geralt, and that they'd likely been and gone to Kaer Morhen, since that was the only place the witcher had never let Jaskier follow him to. Well, among other places, but that was irrelevant. The point was Ciri and Geralt were travelling together, and the subject of Jaskier's birthday had been neatly tucked away, but it'd brought about him thinking of Ciri aging and aging and aging and Geralt… _not._

It'd be hell on _both_ of them.

(Jaskier did not like how he knew how that felt. To be left behind. He _also_ did not like the idea of Cirilla undergoing the trials that would give her a witcher's long lifespan, which would most reliably take away the spark of wonder in the child he'd known some seven years prior.)

"Of course," Yen agreed, brows drawn. "Going from a posh life to a poor one or likewise is difficult on _anyone,_ especially after what happened in Cintra."

"Oh, no," the bard chuckled at the memory of a tiny, headstrong tot with white-blonde hair and silvery green eyes charging at him with a wooden toy sword in the vast halls of grandeur. "Even young, Cirilla was hardy. She's the granddaughter of the Lioness of Cintra. That girl is, very assuredly, not having trouble going from posh to hiking the soles of her boots out. I'm talking about the, erm. The fact that she ages and Geralt doesn't."

"Oh," Yen said, voice quiet. Then, _"Oh._ Jaskier…"

The conversation went on and on, discussing how a nineteen-year-old troubadour had wondered at immortality and thought himself untouchable by the world versus how the nearly forty-two-year-old professor and infamous bard felt more than a little heartache at the thought of his closest companion (or companions) going on and on without him. They talked about how the young Cirilla would grow up, one day, and Geralt would be the same, immovable statue and guarded gaze, wielding one steel sword and the other silver regardless of how many monster corpses lied in his wake. Regardless of how many friends and years passed.

Then Jaskier packed a basket, took Yen by the arm, and lead her into Oxenfurt like it was the first time he'd ever done so.

~*~

"So," Yen said, pulling apart the warm, doughy bread they'd stopped for on their way through town. "Ostara, then."

"Oh, yes," Jaskier said back. "The Vernal Equinox nearing. Funny you mention it, does it have any effect on how your Chaos might react?"

Yennefer gazed at him from where she laid on his lap and smiled. "Not really. I'm bringing Ostara up because I wanted to know what you might like to do for your birthday."

Jaskier's heart dropped into his stomach. _Fuck,_ he thought, feeling caught out and, frankly, like an idiot. _Of course_ Yennefer knew. Elena had probably brought it up several times over before he'd even made it through his lessons.

"All of Oxenfurt knows you, love," Yen said, reaching up with one scarred hand to cup his cheek, brushing her thumb over the pout of his bottom lip. "The Academy, your students, your peers, your friends. Everyone is looking forward to Ostara this year because you're _home,_ Jaskier, and they wish to celebrate it, celebrate _you."_

"You don't." He faltered, feeling a stinging in his eyes, a flush in his face. He looked away from that unyielding violet gaze. "You don't mind me growing old?"

"At this point," Yen started, gentle but sure, "I'm somewhere over seventy years old. And I've been considering, recently, that I might find a way to get rid of immortality altogether if it means spending the rest of my life with you, as we plan to vow."

Jaskier felt faint and cottony in the sunlight. A hot tear streaked down his cheek, and Yen's hand stopped it in its tracks. She sat up, scooted in close beside him, and he tucked his face into her neck obligingly when she brought her hand to the back of his head to guide him there. They sat like that for a little while, Jaskier trembling into Yennefer's side as silent tears pierced his eyes, Yennefer humming a sweet tune.

"I've never really…" Jaskier sniffed, turning so he was facing out with his head leaned against the shoulder of his fiancée companionably. "I grew up in court with my grandfather to raise me, and he didn't much like me anyway. I only ever saw my mother on bigger holidays. Never really celebrated the day of my birth."

Yen hummed thoughtfully. "Not even when you traveled with Geralt?"

A sharp pain of grief struck his heart. "No," he said. "Celebrating the passing of time seemed sort of cruel to do with him when the stretch of it was laid out before him so vastly with no sure end in sight. I figured the same might apply to you."

That garnered him a brief, humorless chuckle. "Geralt and I are two very different beings, darling," she said. There was a pause as she considered her next words. "And, this year, we're going to have your birthday with the whole of the city. I heard this minstrel from Cidaris is attending one of those exhibitions Elena mentioned earlier."

Jaskier frowned, sniffing once as his gears turned. "Do tell, might that minstrel's name be Valdo Marx?" he asked, suspicion laced in his query.

Yen's brow quirked. "I believe so," she replied.

"Oh, _son_ of a—"

~*~

"Oh, yeah! My soulmate, Yennefer of Vengerberg, dearest love and most magnificent of wonders, my heart of hearts, I, Julian Alfred Pankratz, formally request thy hand in betrothal, to stand by my side for the rest of our days and into death as one."

"You're a _sodding_ mess, Jaskier. We're already engaged!"

"It was overdue to give you the proposal properly, the one you so deserved."

"Oh, _Jaskier._ Of course I'll be your betrothed, darling."

~*~

When Jaskier attended the exhibitions—a fanciful set of small, funny plays that intertwined with short sets of music—it was clear the whole of Oxenfurt was holding their breath in anticipation of his every word. He carried the case that held his lute over one shoulder, and Yennefer stood beside him, her hand on his arm the whole day and into the night.

When Valdo Marx made to ascend to the stage for a final performance of the night, Jaskier climbed atop the table he'd been seated at with an unsteady stagger—to the sound of Elena's offended scoff as she cleared the table of any dishware and the like and Yennefer's slightly inebriated giggling—and took his lute from its case, brandishing the enchanted instrument and its beautiful golden filigree. Valdo Marx still attempted to catch the crowd's attention, but failed.

The whole _city_ was looking at Jaskier. The task before him seemed daunting, seemed to loom like only very few characters of his memory _could,_ but the scholarly city of Oxenfurt had their eyes on _him._

And Jaskier _liked_ it.

"Oh!" Yen hissed, beckoning him to listen to her a moment. "Let me up with you! I know all your songs by now, darling."

The flush that colored Yennefer's dark face reminded Jaskier of the days they'd _not_ known each other, spent arguing, spent glaring and fighting for the attentions of a man who had only, in the end, gotten in the way of the two of them, and he put the strap of his lute over his shoulder and pulled his betrothed onto the table with both hands. He ducked again to request Elena clear all tables and unbuttoned his doublet. Beside him, Yen gracelessly removed her long gloves and rolled up her sleeves, then kicked off her heels and hiked her dress just enough to show a sliver of stocking-covered ankle.

Elena guffawed beneath them as the crowd murmured, and she took Yennefer's shed clothing and putting them aside for later. Jaskier got his lute back over his shoulder, clutched the fretboard in one familiar hand and pressed his fingers flat on the strings on the body to still the sound. He took a deep breath to steady himself, pulling to center how he usually did before a performance, and—

"Ooh, going _big,_ are we?" Yen snickered, grinning wide and dangerous. Her hair was slipping loose of its intricate braid. Jaskier had a feeling it'd be swirling free by the end of the night. "Let me guess: _King and Commonfolk?"_

 _"King and Commonfolk,_ yes," he chuckled back, feeling warm as his bride-to-be took to the melody as easily as a bird to the air.

Her voice rang out alone to the second line, when Jaskier plucked a soft chord, then another, then played a dipping _twang,_ and then his fingers moved across the strings, the fretboard, plucking note by note by note until the music came down like a hammer.

They danced across the emptied tables, bare feet atop Jaskier's old boots, small hands clinging, skirt and hair swinging, intimacies and booming voices and laughter and clapping, chanting lyrics and melodies until the small hours of the morning.

Jaskier was right, after all. Yennefer's hair _did_ end up coming loose by the end of the night, and the dried buttercups, those now-harmless little flowers that'd been braided into her hair, clung into the pin curls of the sorceress's hair, marking her _his._

It was, by far, the best way to have one's first birthday celebration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while! updated publishing schedule is still saturdays, but probably spaced two or three weeks instead of just one. song in the fic is king by amazing devil, and the chapter title comes from new york torch song. i hoped you guys liked this one, and as always you'll find me on tumblr @spaacey-ace2022
> 
> I'd like to thank reader laine who commented yesterday. I've been debating bringing some fictions back from the dead and you wrote me a wholeass paragraph and my first thought was "oh shit I DO have things planned." Not to sound like PBS, but I'd like to give thanks to readers like you :)

**Author's Note:**

> comments, kudos, and constructive criticism are welcome!
> 
> you can find me on tumbler at @spaacey-ace2022, come leave asks and submissions if you please
> 
> see you on Saturday ;D


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